In this public affairs interview, Rachel Mains speaks with Daisy Hutton, Vice President and Publisher of Hachette Nashville, about the beautifully crafted “Majestic Illuminated Bible” — a visually immersive King James Version Bible featuring restored 450-year-old Reformation-era artwork. Daisy shares how the project was inspired by historic woodcut illustrations originally used in some of the earliest Bibles of the Reformation and explains the desire to create a Bible-reading experience that is both artistic and spiritually engaging. The conversation highlights the growing interest in Bible reading, the enduring appeal of the King James Version, and the importance of helping readers
I’m Rachel Mains with Crawford Media Group here in Denver. And today I have the pleasure of speaking to Daisy Hutton. She’s the vice president and publisher of Hatchet Nashville. Daisy, thank you so much for being here today. Rachel, thank you so much for having me. Well, I have this beautiful, majestic, illuminated Bible right in front of me, and I just love this. And I’m not just saying that because I’m interviewing you. This is gorgeous. Why did you decide to make this Bible? And, you know, there’s so many Bibles out there. This idea for this particular Bible, how did that come to you?
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, thank you so much. We’re really proud of this Bible. And As we were thinking about what we wanted to do, you know, Bible publishing has been in an incredible boom over the last several years, which is for the first time in many, many years, people are reading the Bible more than they have in a very, very long time. And there’s no dearth of Bible publishers out there and there’s no dearth of Bibles. But what we’ve really noticed about our readers overall with all of the publishing that we do is that they’re really looking for an experience. And so we wanted to create a Bible that was really experiential. And when we found out about these beautiful woodcut illustrations that were created during the Renaissance, that were used in some of the earliest Bibles of the Reformation, excuse me, not the Renaissance, the Reformation, but these woodcuts appeared in one of the earliest Bibles of the Reformation, we thought, this is a wonderful way to recreate a very experiential way to come face-to-face with Scripture. and a very visual, very surrounding, all-encompassing way to experience Scripture that’s a little bit different from many of the Bible projects out there that focus on study, learning. We wanted this Bible to be very visual and experiential for people.
SPEAKER 01 :
And I like that a lot because while you’re reading, you can kind of think of the imagery and it kind of gets your imagination going. Plus, it’s just very beautiful. You know, a lot of people write in their Bible, but this one is like, I don’t know. It’s so beautiful. But what are some of the feedback that you’re getting from users and from those who have this Bible?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, that it’s different from anything that they’ve seen before and that it’s very immersive in its way. And, you know, I think it really does create a very different experience. And that’s exactly what these illustrations were intended for. to do, when you think about the early readers of this Bible, they were just coming to reading for the very first time. The Luther’s translations had just been published, and many of these consumers, they were very early readers. And so the creator of this Bible wanted to give them an opportunity to build out that experience in a visual way alongside of that intellectual way that they were experiencing Scripture through reading.
SPEAKER 01 :
I love that. Yeah, it’s 450-year-old restored Reformation-era artwork, which is gorgeous. It’s also the King James Version, which is important to a lot of people. It’s a trusted standard version, correct? It is.
SPEAKER 02 :
It is the oldest and still one of the most popular English translations that’s in use now. And We are part of Hachette Publishing Company, which is one of the third largest publishers in the world, and we don’t own a Bible translation. You know, most of the Bible translations that have been created have been done so by Bible societies, and we wanted to find a way to bring this to people, you know, without owning a translation. And so this is where we started with the King James Version, I think, which is a nice fit, because it is, you know, we call it the majestic King James, because it is just such a beautiful Bible. But the hope is that if people really enjoy this Bible, that we’ll be able to offer it in other translations down the line.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, that’s perfect. So you as a publisher, what’s that like? I’m sure our listeners are curious. How did you get involved in publishing and what’s that like? Oh, gosh, it’s so funny.
SPEAKER 02 :
We have a very diverse staff in terms of ages. And we were just talking as a group, some of the younger members of the team, talking with some of us that have been around for a while about how we got into this business. And often by accident, I think if you’re from certain parts of the country, you may know a little bit about the publishing industry if you have that kind of access, if you’re from one of the coasts. And But I grew up in Mississippi, and it wasn’t really available to me as a career, and I just completely stumbled into it. I went to Ole Miss, and my younger sister had a writing teacher there who had connections in New York and got her an internship, and I tagged along for the ride, and that was 29 years ago. It’s been a wonderful career, and I really enjoyed it. And working in Christian publishing has just been… an absolute joy to be able to combine my love of books with my faith. It’s been a really, really exciting and fulfilling career.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, sounds exciting. So do people come to you who are wannabe authors and you take them on, or how does that work? They absolutely do.
SPEAKER 02 :
And, you know, most people believe they have a book in them. Wherever you go, if you say, oh, I’m a publisher, you know, you hear a lot, well, I’ve got this book that I’ve been wanting to write, and it’s true. You know, people, we really live on story. It’s the way we think about our own lives, you know, and we enjoy immersing ourselves in storytelling. That’s why we read. That’s why we love gorging on Netflix shows that we really love. But yes, and it’s really interesting that book publishing has been such a stable industry over so many years with so many ups and downs with other types of media. disrupting you know the way that people consume right information but the publishing has remained very stable people love to read books and so i feel a tremendous amount of joy when we are able to offer to a writer the opportunity to have their book published professionally by a group of professionals and have us you know have an editor help them shepherd the writing a marketing team a sales force that can help them get their books into all of the retail outlets, and then we have a wonderful creative team that can put a beautiful cover on a book. So traditional publishing is still very much alive, and the people who work in it, I really stayed in it because I enjoy the people so much and because I enjoy supporting creatives. It’s a very vibrant industry that I’ve just been very grateful to have my career in.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, it sounds very rewarding. And then also just to encourage people in multiple ways to get away from the digital devices, sit down and read a book or sit down and write a book.
SPEAKER 02 :
And write your story. You know, I had a friend of mine who has been through some just, you know, everybody has their story and everybody has things that they’ve experienced that they can potentially help another person get through a difficult time or have an insight. And this friend that I’ve had for decades, she was reading me some of her writing over the phone, and I said, you can publish this. Let’s figure out a way. And as a public, I’ve been doing this a while. You don’t always say that to people. It’s not always clear that someone’s writing can be published. But when I talk to someone who’s an aspiring writer, I always encourage them, the first thing that you can do is look for a good writing group. You can find them locally, certainly in the Denver area. There are lots of opportunities there. But you can find one online and find a good supportive writing group where you can have your work read and get feedback on it and find a community of other people who are trying to express their story or write another story or create a book that’s a practical book that someone may benefit from. So that’s where the first step is, finding a way to engage in community writing. And then usually the second step is looking for a good literary agent to help represent your book. Or many people these days self-publish. You know, they just bypass us publishers and go straight to the consumer, which is very possible these days through some of the, you know, through Amazon especially. So there’s never been more opportunity to have your voice heard. heard in so many different ways to find a pathway to having your voice heard.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. I’m sure, though, there are great advantages to going to a publisher such as yourself. Can you explain that difference? I think so.
SPEAKER 02 :
We used to live in a world where publishers would go for three martini lunches was the joke, and it was about who you knew and who you had access to, and that’s not the world we live in anymore because authors are able to get their work through so many different vehicles to get their work read. The consumer is really the decider, and I think that’s a good thing ultimately for book publishers, but that’s meant that As a group of professionals, we really have to know what people are wanting to read and desiring to read and what makes a book special to people, depending on the different category or genre. We have to be really, really good at that and what we do. And the way I think of it is we can just bring our expertise and walk alongside of that writer individually. to add all of the things that we bring to the table, you know, the editorial experience, the design experience, distribution, you know, is a big part of that. You can’t be an author and walk into Target and say, hey, put my book on the shelf. You know, one of the values of being part of the value of being published traditionally is that you have access to those retail outlets, which is good. But a marketing team that’s going to come alongside of you and, you know, we’re going to spend money to help support the books that we publish. So I really believe in traditional publishing, but I also believe that, you know, for many people, self-publishing can be a great way. But I think there’s, you know, there’s still a tremendous body of work ahead of us traditional publishers to do. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, you know, I think that’s encouraging and inspiring to our listeners who think, you know, it’s impossible for me to get my book out there. But to know that, no, it is possible. You just got to reach out, do the work and get in community. It’s really true. Yeah, it’s really true. Yeah. Going back to the Majestic Illuminated Bible, who came to you with this idea or was this an idea in-house? Oh, no, it’s very interesting.
SPEAKER 02 :
There is a beautiful typography shop in Copenhagen, Denmark, and it’s called 2K Denmark. And the principal there is a gentleman named Klaus, and he actually looks like Santa Claus, Santa Claus. And he has this beautiful typography shop. Most Bible publishers, many, or I would say a large majority of Bible publishers around the world use him for creating their Bible settings because he’s just, they just do such incredibly beautiful work. And he had gotten his hands on these illustrations and had this idea for a Bible. So it was really Klaus’s idea. And he brought it, he brought the illustrations to us and pitched us on them, and we were all just so taken with them. And we just felt like there was nothing like this in the market, and we knew that they could help us create something really, really beautiful. So in addition to refurbishing these, these were original woodcuts. that were created, and they were rendered in a very different way when they were originally published. And so the work that 2K did kind of brought them into a new vibrancy. And they also created beautiful interior designs that are for color to add to the experience of the Bible that was their hand-done typography work, their hand-done work. which I think it makes the Bible so very special. There are just not many shops or artists in the world who could have created this content for us to publish. So I’m really grateful to Klaus. If you’re out there listening, thank you. We’re really proud. We love doing this project with you.
SPEAKER 01 :
And you should be proud. And I’m not just saying this. This is the most beautiful Bible I’ve ever seen. It’s just a treasure. And so I know our listeners want to get a hold of this and to see this. Where can they get this Bible? They can buy it wherever books are sold at the retailer of their choice. It should be widely available wherever they want to shop for their books. This would be a great gift to give anybody, your husband, your wife, your kid, your sister, your brother.
SPEAKER 02 :
Mm hmm.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think so, too. Thank you for that. Well, thank you so much for coming on our public affairs. We’ll have you back and blessings on all the work you’re doing and inspiring Christian artists. Thank you so much. It is an honor. And once again, I’ve been speaking with Daisy Hutton. She is the vice president and publisher of Hash It Nashville. And today is your lucky day, listener. We are giving away 10 copies today. of this beautiful Bible, the majestic illuminated Bible, which is the very first illustrated Bible to contain a unified art style by a single artist. And these woodcuts have been lovingly restored and reimagined. It is an immersive experience for the Bible readers. And to get this Bible, and I would suggest since it’s Mother’s Day season to give it to your mom. What a beautiful, timeless gift. All you have to do to enter the giveaway is go to 670KLTT.com forward slash giveaway. Once again, 670KLTT.com forward slash giveaway.
