The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association has announced the impending launch of its revamped Christian bestsellers list. A March debut is planned, with archived data for January and February also available. Since ECPA’s previous data provider, Bowker, was acquired by Nielsen, the company and the association have been at work on the new Christian list, which for the first time will be compiled using POS data from all sales channels, including bookstore chains, independent booksellers, and mass merchandisers. BookScan’s U.S. Retail Sales Panel data comprises some 85 percent of print book sales and tracks approximately 500,000 ISBNs each week.
White Cloud Press is celebrating its 20th anniversary. The Ashland, Ore.-based press was founded in 1994 in Santa Cruz, Calif., by husband and wife Steven Scholl and Janice Lineberger. White Cloud publishes titles on world religions, mysticism and spirituality, ecology, yoga, politics, and memoirs. The press now also includes the imprints Confluence Books (health-wellness, sports, business, and relationships) and RiverWoods (fiction, travel, children’s, YA). The first books White Cloud published were new translations of the Arabic writings of Kahlil Gibran; world paperback rights sold to Penguin Books. In 2002, White Cloud’s Approaching the Qur’an by Michael Sells sparked a national debate and wide media attention on teaching Islam in American colleges when the University of North Carolina made it required reading for all incoming freshmen. A conservative Christian group filed a lawsuit against the UNC claiming the public university was attempting to promote Islam. The book has since been a required textbook at more than 300 universities. More information about White Cloud books can be found at www.whitecloudpress.com
Harvest House Publishers has announced a corporate restructuring. LaRae Weikert has been promoted to executive v-p/editorial; she was previously v-p of editorial. Weikert, a 28-year veteran of Harvest House, will take on more corporate-level responsibilities. Barb Sherrill, v-p of marketing, is now v-p of product development, a newly created position. Sherrill will lead editors in the acquisition and development of new gift, youth, and children’s books, as well as overseeing the growth of the company’s fiction line and the creation of new e-product. The Interactive Media and Design department (IMD) has been combined with Marketing to create a new Marketing Services department. Bryce Williamson, manager of IMD, will serve as director of marketing services; publicist Aaron Dillon has been promoted to marketing services manager. Other changes include the promotion of Heather Green to manager of corporate development and strategy and Jeff Marion to covers project manager.
The Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust has selected Alive Communications to represent the published and unpublished works of the late Catholic priest who was the author of more than 40 books, including spirituality classics The Wounded Healer, Here and Now, The Inner Voice of Love, The Way of the Heart, and The Return of the Prodigal Son. Nouwen was a professor at the University of Notre Dame and at Yale and Harvard Divinity Schools. He died in 1996 after serving for ten years as senior pastor of the L'Arche Daybreak, a community home for developmentally disabled adults and their caregivers in Toronto.
Tyndale House author Lisa-Jo Baker (Surprised by Motherhood, April) has established the Maubane Community Center Project to provide services and facilities for 150 adults and 250 children in Maubane, South Africa. The project will fund a community vegetable garden, kitchen and welcome center, community outreach hall, classrooms, and a playground. The fundraising campaign, with a goal of $150,000, runs from Valentine’s Day to Mother’s Day. Baker is herself South African herself and has adopted three siblings from the area. Donations can be made to Pure Charity, or the project can be supported by purchasing one of three custom necklaces designed by Krafty Kash, with $12 from every purchase donated directly to the Maubane Community Center Project.
Graham Blanchard has launched Mom Mentors, a monthly Web panel of seven bloggers who write about teaching young children about God. Mom Mentors panelists answer a question about faith and parenting every second Wednesday of the month; responses are being posted at grahamblanchard.com. Among the Mom Mentors are two authors: Susan Heim (It's Twins: Parent-to-Parent Advice from Infancy Through Adolescence) is also the editor of ten Chicken Soup for the Soul Books. Callie Grant, moderator of Mom Mentors (Close as a Breath; All of Me that You Can't See) is founder and publisher of Graham Blanchard, which launched last fall and publishes board books for early childhood Christian spiritual development.
David C. Cook is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the bestselling The Tale of Three Trees. Authored by Christy Award-winner Angela Elwell Hunt and with illustrations by Tim Jonke, the book has more than two million copies in print. Cook is publishing a limited-edition hardcover gift book of The Tale of Three Trees this month to mark the anniversary.
Barbour Publishing’s The Tattered Quilt by Wanda E. Brunstetter has won a 2013 Single Titles Reviewers’ Choice Award in the Inspirational Novel category. Brunstetter is known for her bestselling Amish fiction; The Tattered Quilt is the sequel to her Half-Stitched Amish Quilting Club. SingleTitles.com is part of CataNetwork and a sister site to CataRomance.com and promotes single-title fiction in print and electronic formats.
