File this under ‘light-hearted’...

A few people have asked me what my ‘secret’ is for getting so much media coverage for Bible Summary.

The answer?  I sent an 80-word press release to my local newspaper, and that’s pretty much it!  I’m sure 999 times out of 1000 that wouldn’t lead to an interview on CNN. It just snowballed!

But with my 15 minutes surely almost over and the three-and-a-half years of the project still ahead, here are a few semi-serious reflections on what contributed to these very strange and exciting few days...

The official Bible Summary Recipe for Media Interest*

* greatly enhanced if taken with a pinch of salt

1. Find a subject that a lot of people can relate to: religion
2. Bring it together with something trendy: Twitter
3. Take on a marathon task: summarising the Bible one chapter per day
4. Make it even harder: 140 characters per chapter
5. Have a concrete measure of the scale of it: I’ll be going till November 2013
6. Send a press release when there’s not much else going on: in August
7. Await results: articles around the world, 12,000 followers

So there it is – I hope it works for you too!

A fully-serious final note

It’s amazing (truly!) that so many people have heard about Bible Summary, but I didn't set out to get that kind of publicity. The main motivation in starting the project was engaging more deeply with Scripture myself.

Now that Bible Summary has become popular my biggest hope is that others will be inspired to engage with the Bible too.

So join me reading Genesis 17...