Cokesbury has appointed Mary McCarthy executive director of retail product management, overseeing the merchandising team that manages the product assortment for cokesbury.com; she will also head Cokesbury events, catalogs, and Cokesbury Resource Consultants. Previously, McCarthy managed the large publisher buying team at Ingram Content Group. She also has held executive positions with the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, The Booksource, and the Library, LTD. Bookstore.
B&H Publishing Group was named Publisher of the Year at the Spanish Evangelical Publishers Association (SEPA) Awards held in Miami during Expolit 2013 (May 2-5). B&H also received the Book of the Year award for La Resolución para Hombres (The Resolution for Men) by Stephen and Alex Kendrick, whose El Desafío del Amor (The Love Dare) also was recognized for selling more than 250,000 copies. B&H was honored with bestseller awards in four other categories. In staffing moves at B&H, Amanda Sloan has been named acting v-p of marketing. She has been marketing manager of trade books since 2010 and helped lead promotion for the bestsellers The Vow (Kim and Krickitt Carpenter), The Resolution for Men (Stephen and Alex Kendrick), The Resolution for Women (Priscilla Shirer), and Reshaping It All (Candace Cameron Bure). Prior to that she was national marketing manager for the stores division of LifeWay Christian Resources, B&H parent company.
Lion Hudson won five awards at the Christian Resources Together Retailers and Suppliers Retreat in Derbyshire, England, on April 29. The annual retreat, hosted by Christian Resources Together United Kingdom, unites Christian publishers, distributors, and booksellers in the U.K. Lion Hudson was named Publisher of the Year for the fourth consecutive year. Under the Lion Hudson and Lion Childrens imprints, the company also won four of the eight publishing awards. Kregel Publications distributes Lion Hudson titles in North America.
WaterBrook Press reports To Heaven and Back by Mary C. Neal has more than 750,000 copies in print since it was released on May 28, 2012. The book has spent 44 weeks on the New York Times Hardcover How-to, Advice Bestseller List,13 of those weeks in the #1 spot. It also has charted on the bestseller lists of Publishers Weekly, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Christian Booksellers Association. On April 18, Neal was a featured author at former First Lady Barbara Bush’s Celebration of Reading to benefit the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. Neal has appeared on Today, Fox & Friends, Hour of Power, Marie, and Katie and has done extensive radio interviews. She also has been featured in Guideposts and Christianity Today magazines.Originally self-published, To Heaven and Back was acquired by WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House, in May 2012. WaterBrook released 200,000 copies of its edition within two weeks of acquisition.
