Tyndale House, the Carol Stream, Ill.,-based Christian publisher, has formed an alliance with NavPress, the publishing arm of The Navigators ministry. Under the alliance, NavPress will maintain its separate identity and continue to acquire and develop content, maintaining an editorial staff in its Colorado Springs, Colo., office. Tyndale will take over manufacturing, warehousing, marketing, sales, and fulfillment. According to a statement from Tyndale, “The larger scale of operations will benefit both companies during this continued time of change and consolidation in the publishing industry.”
There will be layoffs at NavPress, though the number of positions and staff being eliminated has not yet been decided. Layoffs will take place over the next two months, most of them on October 31, and some other staff will be let go three to four months later. Tyndale will be adding staff to handle the new workloads and duties. Charlie Dokmo, The Navigators chief of staff, will continue as interim CEO of NavPress.
NavPress publishes primarily in the categories of spiritual growth, life transformation, and discipleship. Its key product is The Message Bible, a contemporary translation by Eugene Peterson. That fits well with Tyndale’s existing line of Bibles and related titles such as study guides and devotionals.
Doug Knox, senior v-p and group publisher for Tyndale House, stated, “Tyndale and NavPress share a common mission, with product lines that are more complementary than competitive.” The alliance will comprise all of NavPress’s product lines, and backlist will be managed as Tyndale does its own. NavPress will continue to hold all rights to its products and to honor the terms of existing contracts with authors, functioning as the principle author liaison.
For now, NavPress will continue to place and ship all orders. Tyndale sales staff will begin pre-selling NavPress’s 2014 summer list to the trade this November. Going forward, 25-30 NavPress titles are planned per year, “with 10-15 being new trade books. The balance will be new Bible studies, Bible bindings, ministry resources, and repackages,” according to Todd Starowitz, Tyndale publicity director. He added those numbers “could fluctuate from year to year.”
This kind of alliance is part of Tyndale’s history. For 20 years, it has had a similar partnership with Focus on the Family, another Colorado Springs-based ministry organization.
