It is very exciting when some good news happens in our industry. We’ve talked so much about bankruptcies and industry challenges that we also need to celebrate when the good stuff comes along.
Today is the official first day of a newly formed Christian publishing company called Gilead Publishing. The CEO is Bill Giarratana, the President and Publisher is Dan Balow, and the Vice President of Editorial is Sue Brower.
You may know Sue in her previous role as the Executive Editor for fiction at Zondervan and HarperChristian and was named the editor-of-the-year by ACFW. Dan is best known as the head of marketing for the Left Behind series during his days at Tyndale. Plus for the last three years Dan has been (and will still be) a part of The Steve Laube Agency, representing non-fiction projects. Bill is a very experienced marketing person with years of working with major ministry fundraising. He has spent time with both the American Bible Society and Biblica (aka the International Bible Society).
The neat part about Gilead is that they will only be publishing fiction. This means they are extremely targeted and will create a myriad of new opportunities for novelists. In an industry that has been reducing the number of slots available, this is welcome news indeed.
The main operations office is in Wheaton, Illinois and the editorial acquisitions/management office is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. An initial staff of ten employees will be assisted by several key strategic partnerships with service providers. The company is planning to publish from 40-50 titles in 2017, with a few already scheduled for release in late 2016.
Balow comments, “This has been a long time coming as we have been writing business plans and preparing the vision for a company like this for almost a year. When the commitment for investment in a startup traditional publisher was made at the end of last year, we started the count-down toward making this a reality. More details will be revealed in the coming weeks, but we are honored to be a sponsor at the 2016 ACFW conference in Nashville this year and will have plenty to talk about.”
This is the real deal. It is not something run out someone’s basement or on a shoestring budget. We look forward to seeing what impact they will have on the Christian fiction landscape in the years to come.
A preliminary landing page for the company website is at www.gileadpublishing.com with contact information included.
The company is only considering proposals from recognized literary agents at this time.
