Guideposts Taps the Trade Market

by Lynn Garrett -- Publishers Weekly, 1/2/2006

Guideposts, the inspirational resources organization founded 60 years ago by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale, will launch a new imprint this September. The move will be its first foray into the general trade market under its own name. According to Guideposts publisher and editor-in-chief Marilyn Moore, executives at Guideposts believe the time is right to take its brand name to the retail level.

Guideposts Books will publish 15 to 20 titles a year, ranging from first-person narratives and inspirational fiction to entertaining and lifestyle. The imprint will be headed by Richard Stenhouse, v-p, Guideposts Book Publishing Group.

Guideposts' primary business is mail order (it sends 180 million pieces of direct mail every year), with its stable of magazines, daily devotionals and inspirational story collections currently going to 2.6 million subscribers. Over the years, Doubleday published collections of Guideposts stories. To get deeper into the book world, Guideposts acquired Nashville, Tenn.–based Ideals Publishing in 2000.

Ideals had a strong trade history, with multiple channels of distribution, explained Moore, and in 2001, Ideals published Guideposts' annual devotional work, Daily Guideposts, to the trade. That led to publication of the Guideposts for the Spirit series of seven books, which now has 400,000 copies in print, said Marty Flanagan, publishing director of Ideals. Daily Guideposts now sells more than 750,000 copies annually through both direct-mail and retail outlets.

Guideposts plans to use existing staff to launch the imprint. Ideals will handle distribution and sales, and the company will outsource some functions, like publicity and copy editing.