One-year Bible editions mark a mini-milestone

While the 400th anniversary of the King James Version is getting most of the attention this year, 2011 marks a key calendar date for another significant Bible innovation.

It is 25 years since Tyndale House Publishers introduced the first edition specifically designed to help people get more out of God’s Word by reading through the entire Scriptures in one year.

Though there had been different translations, paraphrases and even illustrated editions before, the 1986 release was the first time a publisher thought of not just reinterpreting the words in the Bible, but also relocating them from their traditional order to help make them more accessible.

The idea from Tyndale founder Kenneth Taylor spawned one of the company’s most successful lines, with more than 6 million copies of various One Year Bibles sold to date. The strategy has been embraced by other publishers as well, making the subcategory a strong seasonal one at Christian retail.

But it came close to never getting off the ground. “When he first proposed it, almost to a person it was shot down, both from retailers and editorial staff,” said Blaine Smith, Tyndale’s associate publisher for Bibles. 

Taylor wanted to try it out, however, and pretty soon “it was clear that it was a huge success.” The presentation “gives readers a structure that provides variety and a daily goal to keep them on track and help them be successful,” said Smith. “The testimonies of people who have used the One Year Bible are really quite remarkable.”

Other editions

Following its success with the New Living Translation, Tyndale has licensed other editions for the one-year line, including the New International Version and the New King James. 

Harvest House Publishers followed Tyndale’s lead with the 1989 release of F. LaGard Smith’s The Daily Bible in 1989. Featuring the NIV, it was the first to rearrange the text in a chronological and historical arrangement. Total sales to date have been more than 1.1 million.

Thomas Nelson entered the market around 1990, since introducing several editions, including several that are author-driven. Max Lucado’s Grace for the Moment Daily Bible and The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Daily Bible are continually among the company’s top two best-sellers. 

NavPress joined the subcategory with The Message. The Daily Message one-year Bible came out in 2006, followed by The Message//REMIX Pause, which takes young adult readers through the entire Bible in one year, two years or four years. Crossway also produces a one-year reading edition of its own translation, the English Standard Version.

Group Publishing teamed with Tyndale in 2009 for the God Sightings campaign to encourage daily Bible reading. The initiative twinned a Tyndale special edition of the One Year Bible in the NLT and NIV with a Group companion workbook and leaders’ guides, for church and small group use. 

Seasonal emphasis

Bringing together Old and New Testament passages and breaking them down into in a year’s worth of daily readings has helped readers overcome what can seem like an overwhelming challenge, systematically tackling the Bible’s more than 31,000 verses.

The mix has also been found to help readers keep going on their yearlong effort. For some, a traditional Genesis-to-Revelation read-through may find fading enthusiasm a few weeks into the year, as what might have been a New Year’s resolution is further weakened by Old Testament passages some find to be dense.

Smith noted that some readers pick up a different one-year translation every year or so to bring a freshness to their Bible reading, in addition to their preferred translation. At Zondervan, Senior Vice President and Bibles Publisher Chip Brown added: “We observe that many consumers purchase Bibles on a yearly basis to keep their engagement with God’s Word fresh, and also enjoy giving these Bibles to others as gifts.”

With many people turning to a one-year Bible at the start of a New Year, sales spike towards the end of the year, but Smith reported noticing a small rise at Easter, too. “We don’t really do a promotion then, but maybe people are picking one up for Lent,” he said.

Gary Davidson, senior vice president and group publisher for Bibles at Thomas Nelson, agreed that it is important for stores to maximize exposure in the Christmas and New Year time frames “as there are many that will want to start their New Year’s resolution of getting back into reading the Bible or reading it for the very first time.”

But he cautioned retailers against a “ ‘one-year’ mentality.” He suggested that they promote the editions as “daily,” not “yearly” Bibles. “Invite people to get into the Bible at any time, not just in January. You can start or stop at any time, take a break and come back to it. It doesn’t have to be every day of the year if schedules don’t allow. 

Debating dating

Packaging the Bible in such a way as to encourage people to read it more regularly rather than putting them off has also prompted internal debates—and different printings—for publishers on whether or not to date the entries.

Some believe that going by a calendar date can put people off if they fall a day or two behind in their reading and fear they will never catch up, observed Smith, while others see the specific date spurring readers to keep going or helping them find their way back to where they left off. “We don’t feel that Day One and Day Two work quite as well,” he said. “We have gone back and forth a little bit on the thinking of dated, non-dated—does it present a guilt factor or not?”

Though covers and bindings have changed, the basic concept of—and interest in—the one-year Bible has remained the same since Taylor’s suggestion. “We’ve honestly not really seen a lot of changes in the demand for daily Bibles over the years,” said Davidson. “It continues to be a vibrant product category showing people’s desire to read the Scripture and make it a part of their everyday lives.”

One recent trend has been in digital sales. “We have seen a significant increase in the demand for digital versions of Bibles,” said Davidson. Grace for the Moment Daily Bible is available as an e-book, and “I’d anticipate that our other daily Bibles will also be available in a digital format in the near future.”

Digital one-year Bible sales have also been on the rise at Tyndale, where Smith noted The One Year Bible NLT digital edition, released two years ago, “sells quite well.”

Tyndale’s line is to be refreshed later this year with six new TuTone designs for the fall. That will also be when the company releases the NLT One Year Study Bible. The company has been “very excited” about the positive reception to the forthcoming One Year Bible in Spanish, in the NTV, Nueva Traduccion Viviente, Smith said.

B&H Publishing Group’s Reading God’s Story: A Chronological Daily Bible (Holman Bible Publishers) is due out in October. Using the Holman Christian Standard Bible text, it rearranges chapters, books and verses of the Bible chronologically, with six readings per week so a reader can catch up if a day is missed. 

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