While not a book trade show, the annual joint meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature (AAR/SBL), held late last year at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., has become an increasingly important venue for religion publishers to promote their scholarly, professional and general trade titles to an influential core audience of religion academics. By offering deep discounts -- in some cases up to 55% -- publishers get their books into the hands of those who make decisions on course adoptions and who review and recommend books to others, both feeding the academic market and creating valuable buzz for their titles in wider arenas.

In addition to the usual offerings from scholarly presses, this year the less academic, more trade-oriented books were finding enthusiastic takers. Shopping for Faith by Richard Cimino and San Francisco Chronicle religion writer Don Lattin was "flying off the shelves," according to Sarah Polster, senior editor for the Religion in Practice line at Jossey-Bass. At the Doubleday booth, editorial assistant Andrew Corbin told PW that every display copy of The Left Hand of God by Adolph Holl had been claimed by the second day of the meeting. And a signing by Richard Elliott Friedman, author of The Hidden Book in the Bible (Harper San Francisco) -- selected as a PW Best Religion Book of 1998 -- drew a long line of appreciative colleagues.

Friedman personifies the type of author who has gained prominence in the religion category in the '90s: a well-credentialed academic writing challenging yet accessible books for general trade readers. In all, 160 publishers set up exhibits at the 1998 meeting.

At a panel co-sponsored by PW and SBL, an audience of would-be general trade authors heard publishing professionals from such houses as Knopf, Doubleday and Harper San Francisco, as well as William Morris agent Claudia Cross, discuss a number of industry topics. One of the issues raised from the audience was that it can be more difficult for them to find an agent than a publisher, and after the session a long line formed in front of Cross.

One of the more interesting evening events was co-sponsored by Eerdmans and Westminster John Knox Press. J. Philip Wogaman (pastor to President and Mrs. Clinton and author of WJK's From the Eye of the Storm: A Pastor to the President Speaks Out) and New Testament scholar Robert Jewett (one of 94 signers of the recent "Declaration Concerning Religion, Ethics, and the Crisis in the Clinton Presidency" and a contributor to Eerdmans's Judgment Day at the White House) faced an overflow crowd of more than 300 to debate whether forgiveness or judgment is the proper response to the revelations of the Starr Report and Clinton's subsequent confessions. WJK and Eerdmans plan to cross-promote the two titles, set for simultaneous release this month.

Though attendance was down slightly -- from an anticipated 7500 to an estimated 7300 -- scholars, as always, used the meeting to exchange ideas with colleagues and to attend seminars. Doug Abrams-Arava, acquisitions editor at the University of California Press, summed up AAR/ SBL's value for publishers: "This remains the primary marketplace of cutting-edge ideas in the field, and it presents us with the opportunity to find and develop tomorrow's important books in religion."

The 1999 AAR/SBL meeting is set for November 20-23 in Boston.