Loyola Gives Away Books; ATB Adds Members; Howard Adds Staff

by Lynn Garrett, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 10/18/2006

To launch The Shoemaker's Gospel by Daniel Brent (Oct.)—the press's first original novel—Loyola is betting $59,000 that giving away books will ultimately sell books. Rather than spending on advertising or on mailing copies to reviewers and journalists, Loyola will send more than 3,500 gratis copies (worth $16.95 each) to pastors, deacons and religious education directors nationwide, hoping not only to inspire those religion professionals personally, but also to move them to spread the word and recommend the book to others.

The ten stores in the Augsburg Fortress bookstore chain have joined the Association of Theological Booksellers, the first religious bookstore chain to do so. ATB was founded in the early 1990s and meets annually at the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature meeting, where it presents its Theologos Awards for outstanding books and publishers of scholarly religion titles. The association also sponsors a semi-annual consumer catalogue for seminary and theological bookstores.

Howard Books, the Simon & Schuster imprint based in Monroe, La., has added two new editors. David and Cindy Lambert have joined the company as senior editors. Both were previously at Zondervan, David as executive editor for fiction and Cindy as executive editor and director of category strategy. Howard has also promoted Philis Boultinghouse to senior editor. She has been at Howard since 1996 and was previously both managing editor and executive director of the production department.