Christian fiction publisher Gilead Publishing, which has struggled in recent months, has teamed up with Kregel Publications, according to an announcement made June 28.
Gilead, which opened its doors in April 2016, ceased operations less than a year later due to loss of funding. The new partnership with Kregel will allow Gilead to begin operations again under the same name and leadership.
Kregel, based in Grand Rapids Mich., will handle all non-editorial work for Gilead including distribution, warehousing, inventory control, shipping, and sales, with Gilead overseeing its own acquisitions and editorial needs. The two houses will work together on marketing and publicity, according to Dan Balow, president and publisher of Gilead.
“We’ll have our own platform and website, social media and blogs,” he said. “Kregel will make sure that books get reviewed. It’s a collaborative thing; we’ll talk to the consumer and Kregel will talk to the trades.”
According to Dave Hill, Kregel's executive director of sales and marketing, Kregel “has a healthy fiction line, with some authors selling 5,000-7,000 copies of each title.” He said, “Gilead fits our publishing plan perfectly. We are interested in the middle area, the authors who aren’t selling 30,000 copies but who can sell at the 15,000 level.”Kregel will continue to publish fiction under its own name.
The first book Gilead will publish via the partnership is the 50th anniversary gift edition of the novel Christy by Catherine Marshall which will be released on Nov. 8. Christy has sold 10 million copies, according to Kregel. Balow said the company will release eight titles between October 2017 and February 2018, and a dozen more between March and June 2018. Some will be under the Enclave Publishing imprint purchased by Gilead before its temporary closure in late 2016.
Titles to be released include novels by Liz Tolsma, Barbara Cameron and Phyllis Nickels. Gilead also signed an agreement with James Stuart Bell to manage the new Gilead Classics line of books, many of which are in the public domain, including “mild rewrites” of titles such as The Brothers Karamazov and Anna Karenina, according to Balow.
“Between all these things—Enclave, Classics and Gilead—we can easily do 40 to 50 titles a year,” Balow maintained.
According to Hill, this is the first partnership of its kind, “a symbiotic relationship,” he said.
“We both have things we can bring to the table that will help each other,” said Balow.
