Does Zondervan "get it" at last?

John has a link to an interview on Christianity Today with Maureen Girkins, Zondervan’s CEO in the interview she says that Zondervan's singing and dancing all celebrity Audio Bible The Bible Experience was their best-selling Bible in 2007. That should be no surprise to PodBiblers, our un-advertised, read-by-plain-ordinary-people, Bible delivers more than 40,000 audio Bible chapters each month!

They asked her:

Can you tease out an example of how publishing will change?

Wireless phones, which didn't exist 20 years ago, have changed not only the way people communicate but also the way they live. People are going to read, and they're going to read paper for the rest of our lifetimes. But I'm convinced that different distribution for content will change the way we live. We have entered the digital world. It's not like we're just stepping our toe into it. The Bible Experience audio Bible was the best-selling Bible of 2007.

I think we can make some predictions today for how further distribution changes will alter the way we live our Christian life. The spiritual journey many of us have will be changed by the Internet and digital technology. But I'd like a little more time in this discovery process before I can vocalize how.

Now, this is cautious, but much less cautious than print-based publishers usually are! It makes projects like David's for mobile phones or our PodBible relevance visible!

Music and Bible

Listeners to PodBible may be interested in another audio Bible project the Manna Bible is providing readings of Scripture with a musical backing track specially written to dramatise the text. So far they seem to have just a few chapters done - it is a massive project. They needed copyright free translations so are providing KJV and WEB. If I find out more I will blog about Manna Bible again...