Reading device will offer Christian books to ‘an even broader audience’

Thomas Nelson and Zondervan were among the first publishers to release titles for Apple’s new iPad digital-media device. The market is strong, with more than 300,000 iPads sold April 3—the launch day for the device—and more than 250,000 e-books downloaded.

More than 1,200 Nelson titles, including Max Lucado’s Fearless and Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover, were made available for download for the launch on Apple’s digital book store—iBooks. At press time, iBooks had approximately 60,000 titles from general market and Christian publishers.

“We are extremely pleased that Thomas Nelson has the largest collection of inspirational titles available on such a revolutionary reading device,” Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt said.

More than 1,000 Zondervan titles were made available for download on iBooks. The Grand Rapids, Mich., publisher plans to release all of its future e-books in an iPad version and was working to release more than 150 additional books in the next three months, company officials said.

“As a division of HarperCollins, we are fortunate to play a major part in the iPad launch,” said Steve Sammons, Zondervan’s executive vice president of consumer engagement. “We are excited that … Zondervan’s titles will be available to an even broader audience.”

Among the Zondervan books offered were three translations of the Bible, The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel and Take Three by Karen Kingsbury as well as best-sellers, including The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.

To celebrate the iPad launch, Zondervan launched a social-media campaign through Twitter and Facebook, giving away 50 $10 iTunes gift cards for the purchase of iBooks.

Hachette Book Group USA offered 4,000 titles on iPad, including 298 FaithWords and 97 Center Street books, company officials said. Meanwhile, Crossway made its ESV Bible available as a free application for iPad. Additionally, more than 600 Crossway titles were offered on iPad via the iPad Kindle application, with 50 of those accessible through iBooks.

Elsewhere, titles published by Random House—the parent company of WaterBrook Press and Multnomah Books—were unavailable for iPad’s launch because the world’s largest consumer trade publisher resisted the pricing model that Apple had offered publishers.

Although publishers make less money per unit sale under Apple’s “agency” pricing model, they fear universal $9.99 e-book best-sellers create the impression all new books are worth only $10, The Wall Street Journal observed.

Digital books are the fastest growing part of the book business. E-book sales had sales of $31.9 million in January—reflecting an increase of 261.2% for the month and the same percentage increase compared to January 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers.

Last year, Zondervan, Baker Publishing Group and Tyndale House Publishers were among those offering Bible translations for the mobile reading device.

Recently, Bethany House Publishers and Zondervan began offering free versions of some its best-selling titles from authors such as Beverly Lewis, Rob Bell, Brandilyn Collins, Tracie Peterson and Terri Blackstock—which topped Amazon’s Kindle best-sellers lists.

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