Founded in 1975 by Ehud C. Sperling, Inner Tradition International continues to be on the cutting edge of New Age, or the occult category, as it was known years ago. Based in Rochester, Vt., ITI is expanding along with the New Age category and will mark its 25th anniversary by launching a New Age teen imprint.
Sperling began his book career working at Samuel Weiser's in New York City, one of the country's largest esoteric bookstores. After leaving Weiser's, he launched the Destiny imprint at Warner Books while making plans for ITI. Once a fringe market, the New Age category has gone mainstream in a big way--the Dalai Lama has been on PW's bestseller list for the past year--and so has ITI, which now has a backlist of 650 titles. Sperling mentioned Patch Adams's Gesundheit!, which shipped 40,000 copies a week during the release of the Robin Williams film in 1998. He also pointed to Max Toth and Greg Nielsen's Pyramid Power, which has been translated into 15 languages and has sold more than one million copies worldwide, and to ITI's all-time bestsellers: Sexual Secrets by Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger; The Complete Kama Sutra, translated by Alain Danielou; and Robert B. Tisserand's The Art of Aromatherapy, the first book on aromatherapy to be published in the U.S.
The privately held company publishes 60 books a year, primarily quality paperbacks. Sperling told PW, "We've had between 10% and 25% growth in eight of the last 10 years." ITI has always been willing to try new markets, including a Spanish-language imprint and an Indian imprint printed in India for the Indian market. Now ITI plans to enter the young adult market this fall with a teen imprint called Bindu Books--Getting to the Point. "Bindu," explained Sperling, "is a Sanskrit word meaning 'point,' as in the point at the center of the universe." The first two books, both paperback originals, will be Teen Astrology: The Ultimate Guide to Making Your Life Your Own by M.H. Abadie and The Thundering Years: Rituals and Sacred Wisdom for the Journey into Adulthood by Julie Tallard Johnson.
The founder's marriage to Vatsala Sperling and the birth of their son, Mahar, in 1998 has also been a source of personal--and literary--growth. His eight-month correspondence with Vatsala, whom he met through an ad in an Indian newspaper, is the basis for A Marriage Made in Heaven: A Love Story in Letters to be published by Ten Speed Press this month.
