Todd Burpo Moves Houses
In a world rights deal, Alive Literary Agency’s Andrea Heinecke brokered God Is for Real by Todd Burpo to FaithWords’ editor Keren Baltzer. The new book is Burpo’s follow-up to his debut bestseller-turned-film, Heaven is for Real, published in 2010 by Thomas Nelson. Slated for publication in September 2017, God is for Real centers on common questions believers have about God on a daily basis, followed by relevant passages from Scripture on taking the next steps in faith.
FaithWords Nabs Kim Fields Memoir
Keren Baltzer closed a world rights, all languages deal on Blessed Life, a memoir by Kim Fields, the actress best known for her role on NBC’s sitcom The Facts of Life. Dan Strone at Trident Media Group represented the author. The book will explore Fields’s personal life and five-decade-long acting career, including her early days in Harlem and the rise to fame in Hollywood. The book will also showcase Fields’s faith as well as her family life. Blessed Life is slated for publication at HBG’s FaithWords division in November 2017.
Multnomah Signs Katie Davis Majors
Katie Davis Majors, author of the 2011 bestseller Kisses from Katie and Glamour magazine’s 2012 Woman of the Year, signed with Multnomah for a new book scheduled for fall 2017. Billed by the publisher as a memoir “about a new season of ministry,” the book will shed light on Davis Majors’s recent wedding, raising her 13 adopted daughters, and the birth of her son. Laura Barker, WaterBrook and Multnomah v-p and editorial director, acquired world rights to the untitled work in print and digital formats from Curtis Yates of Yates & Yates.
A ‘Queen’ for Kar-Ben
Kar-Ben Publishing inked a foreign rights deal with the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature for the English language rights to the picture book, A Queen in Jerusalem, a story about the famous Bezalel Arts Academy in Israel, by Tami Shem-Tov and Rachella Sandbank. Publisher Joni Sussman acquired the title from ITHL agent Nili Cohen. The book is slated to release in spring 2018.
Music Duo Signs Multi-Book Deal
The husband-and-wife team of modern hymn writers Keith and Kristyn Getty sold world rights to B&H’s v-p of trade publishing, Jennifer Lyell, and Christian living publisher, Devin Maddox, for four books. Natives of Belfast, Ireland, the Gettys have recorded six albums that cross the genres of traditional, classical, folk, and contemporary composition. While details about the project were not immediately available, the first book in the deal will release in the summer 2017. Wolgemuth & Associates represented the Gettys.
Three Deals at Loyola
In three world rights deals, Loyola Press’s executive trade acquisitions editor Joe Durepos acquired works by religion editors Gary Jansen (Image Books/Penguin Random House) and Jon Sweeney (Ave Maria Press) as well as a book by Catholic writer Amy Welborn. Scheduled for publication in January 2017, Jansen’s new book, Station to Station, explores the important question: “How should we respond to suffering?” Following in late 2017, Welborn’s 65 Scripture Stories That Every Catholic Child Should Know will complete a trilogy of spiritual books for young people. Lastly, in late 2018, Sweeney’s new project, Never Close Your Heart, is a narrative account of St. Peter Faber, canonized by Pope Francis in 2013.
Ave Marie Targets Nones
Ave’s executive editor Jon M. Sweeney acquired world rights to Why I Am Catholic (And You Should Be Too) by Brandon Vogt (Return: How to Draw Your Child Back to the Church). Directed toward atheists, agnostics, and religious “nones,” the book will make a case for how Catholicism is good, beautiful, and true by using Vogt’s own story as well as works of G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Bishop Robert Barron, Michelangelo, and the saints. It is slated to publish in fall 2017.
Eerdmans Takes PBS Doc Tie-In
In a world rights deal, executive editor at Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. David Bratt acquired An American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story, the companion volume to the forthcoming PBS documentary of the same title by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Martin Doblmeier. Authored by Jeremy Sabella, the book will include interviews with historians and other experts about Reinhold Niebuhr, including those impacted by the theologian’s life and work. An American Conscious will be published on March 31.
