More about EGW Lifeworks in Logos 6 (important details for existing owners of EGW writings)

That's a terrific suggestion in principle. In practice, I don't think it could work that way because of the step-by-step process these collections march through. If your idea can be implemented, I'll let you know, David.

We are trying to do what's best for our customers here, as always, and I'm thankful that those who go with Bronze and Silver upgrades will be able to get EGW Lifeworks in a base package (which hadn't seemed likely); those who already have EGW will get dynamic pricing credit. And everybody will get the recompiled files as soon as they get done--a huge task for 402 books and other documents. Bottom line: we are trying to get this done as quickly as possible at the best possible price (or no cost at all). Thanks for your patience during this process--it will be worth the wait, I'm sure. 

We all want to speed up the process, but it's quite a journey from wanting a product in Logos to getting it live.

1) First it must be licensed, which is no easy thing with any official denominational product--the church is trying to accelerate its own digital production and many administrative and publishing leaders fear that putting a product into Logos competes with denominational productivity and production (despite my assurances of collaboration). I often have a problem getting phone calls and emails returned--sometimes it takes a dozen or more attempts to finally connect, and then everything has to go through a church committee. The answer is often no, despite the fact that a product is far more functional in Logos--which can make it more threatening to another publisher than if it were a simple ebook.

2) Even for public domain content, there is a long journey toward going live in a Logos product page. Everything we want to do must take its place in line with large contracts signed with major Christian publishers that benefit other denominations but not SDAs; it's easy for our products to get lost in the traffic jam.

3) All products, as you know, go through quite a preparation process to get into the Faithlife ecosystem--that takes time.

4) Part of that process is getting funded, through pre-pubs or community pricing. And lots of good SDA content gets stalled in PP/CP for months before it finally goes live.I reach out constantly with weekly emails and other promotions, and you guys (especially Lynden) work hard on the Forum. But there's only a limited SDA market available.

The best thing you can do is keep promoting Logos/Faithlife products in your own circles of influence as we work together to build Faithlife/SDA. Thanks so much to you all!

Linden, I appreciate your affirmation and fully resonate with your concerns.

Indeed I am committed to getting SDA resources priced as low as possible for the sake of the widest availability among pastors around the world. I caught this passion working with Jim Cress in the Ministerial Association 20 years ago. Beyond my responsibilities with Ministry magazine and the PREACH program, Jim had me continually working on developing low-cost materials for pastors.

I continued collaborating with him for years after I left the GC and went back into pastoring. In 2009 before coming to Faithlife/Logos, I was an unpaid consultant in organizing a discussion for Jim with five world divisions regarding resourcing pastors with Logos Bible Software. Suddenly Jim died, but his dream lives on in my work today. Jim would have been delighted last year to see hundreds of the most financially impoverished SDA pastors receive the world’s best Bible software library—downloaded to them via thumbdrive at pastors’ meetings since many are without Internet access (and thus online freeware can’t help them).

Bottom line: I am continually and fervently negotiating behind the scenes with major SDA copyright holders of content discussed on this forum. The committee system of our church, which safeguards our global organization, is extremely frustrating for our purposes. For example, after months of collaborative effort, GC archivist David Trim and his team worked out a deal for Faithlife/Logos to get hundreds of their documents approved by GC attorneys. We celebrated this week—only to discover that there is one more committee (GC Corporation) to go through (hopefully yet this month). It’s a journey, for sure! But God will continue to bless us as I keep fighting to get quality resources as cheaply as possible into Logos SDA software. We just licensed 500+ more documents with BRI and are about to get the Andrews University Seminary Studies. The ATS Journal is currently being prepared for publication. Much more as well is on the way. Thanks for your support and understanding!

Just yesterday I reached out again to a key decision maker but haven't heard back. In seeking to license Froom's Prophetic & Conditionalist sets, I reminded this person about the SDA BC arrangement. It's a complex situation--the R&H has held rights to all those key resources, but with the transition, given the church's committee system, to negotiate rights for publication or even for recompiling existing resources (like the SDA BC). I'll keep trying.

Colin, tell me what you are doing to promote Logos software and I might be able to arrange a quantity discount.

Martin

You can email me: Martin[dot]Weber@faithlife[dot]com

Technical problems have kept cropping up, the last of which (I hope) was resolved last week with the help of the White Estate. It's been a nightmare of digital difficulties with 402 resources. No definite finish date yet. I'll keep up the intensity in pushing the process along.

I cannot get an accurate estimated shipping date to share with you--it would be difficult to exaggerate the complexity of this particular operation. But progress is being made week by week and I'm pushing as hard as I possibly can.