SPCK is Bad News for North American Christian Readers

For several months now I’ve been working on a project — you could call it an obsession — regarding the way one particular publisher snaps up the Canadian or North American rights to particular UK titles in ways that are completely counterproductive to Canadian and/or North American Christian book buyers.

The first thing that got me aware of this was the third edition of N. T. Wright’s The Kingdom New Testament, now being sold as The New Testament for Everyone so as to better match the Bible commentary brand. The second edition was published through Zondervan, but there were no Canadian rights. This new edition has proven to be a similar situation. One popular Canadian seminary bookstore was unaware of its release. One industry exec described the situation as one where SPCK holds Canadian rights, but is doing nothing with those rights.

To be fair, if SPCK were to issue the UK edition in Canada, we in this country would be well served, because as with so many titles, the market there benefits in terms of price by having a paperback (or softcover for our U.S. friends) edition. It retails for £19.99. The U.S. edition is $34.99 USD. But then again, if Zondervan had been able to purchase the rights — as they have for much of Tom Wright’s catalog — they might have issued an ITPE (International Paperback Edition) if they felt the Canadian market merited one.

(To add to the confusion, Harper Canada does have rights to a brown leathersoft edition, but that is now out of stock until mid-Spring.)

But sometimes the U.S. gets caught in the SPCK shuffle as well.

Consider the case of John Lennox.

John C. Lennox is a highly respected author in the field of Christian apologetics. The Zondervan connection is strong here as well, as three of his previous titles have been published in North American by that unit of HarperCollins Christian Publishing.

But his new work, Friend of God: The Inspiration of Abraham in an Age of Doubt is nowhere to be seen here. (It will form a series of two related books, along with the June re-launch of Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism.)

This mash-up of apologetics and Old Testament study is something I expect his readers here, and perhaps a broader audience as well, would want to purchase. The book about Daniel will have an endorsement from Rick Warren, which seems to anticipate U.S. interest. The SPCK website shows the list price on this one as only £16.99, and a reasonable U.S. list price of $22.99 USD. (Rather an incredible deal actually, if the 440+ page count is accurate.)

But Friend of God, the new title released last week?

Are you sitting down?

SPCK is asking $40.99 USD. That’s $41 for a paperback retailing in the U.K. for £16.99.

Are they treating it here as something which should be priced for the Academic market? There’s no doubt that SPCK is oriented strongly in the realm of scholarly titles, however they have also produced low-priced beginner guides to Christian doctrine for the everyday consumer.

I can’t help but wish Zondervan had been able to acquire it. I can see them labeling it $22.99 USD.

…The great irony here is in the name. SPCK stands for “Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge;” and I can’t think of anything which does this better than the apologetics genre.

But if the titles don’t get out to the vast U.S. Christian book market, that goal is not being accomplished…

I want to say here that this article was months in development. With N.T. Wright, I tried to connect with his Literary Agent, but attempts to connect were never met with any replies. I think they would want his New Testament to reach the Canadian market. Why not?