Mobile Ministry Magazine

By now, news of the new Kindle has pretty much been talked about everywhere. But something that hasn't been talked about as much is the effect that the Kindle and Amazon's means of electronic publishing will have on the Bible market.

I don't think we have to think long before we come to a situation with eBibles that becomes similar to what we are seeing with newspapers and ebooks - where there are fewer players, and more consolidation towards formats that work better for consumers than for publishers.

I don't say this to mean that that Bible publishers will get to a point of irrelevancy, but that it will become more of an issue of shared licensing across digital devices, and in some signifiant cases, how can these electronic formats and licenses be easier to understand and track for readers.

At the time of this writing, the new Kindle has not yet released. Its rumored to be a device geared for the textbook market (colleges and other secondary education). When a device like the Kindle shows how accessible carrying many books in a relatively familiar format can be, how much longer can we hold out with Bibles and resources that either (a) aren't as versatile, (b) aren't as accessible, or (c) aren't as mobile? I think that even for this niche, the new Kindle will effect greatly how people better utilize digital resources. From there, maybe the market changes for all of us.

And this is what I get for writing things a few days before they publish. Read OliveTree's take on the subject.

Labels: Bible, Kindle, publishing