Shambhala Publications, one of the largest publishers of Buddhist books in the West, is celebrating its 30th birthday with growing sales--along with plans to broaden the list and launch a series of millennial conferences that will debut in 2000 in Jerusalem. This fall, the Buddhist house is also offering a special backlist deal on orders placed by December 1 and a window display contest with a grand prize of a trip to Bhutan.
Shambhala was spawned at the height of the counterculture movement in Berkeley, Calif., in 1969, with the publication of Meditation in Action by Chögyam Trungpa, one of the press's top 10 all-time bestsellers. Founder and owner Samuel Bercholz began publishing Shambhala titles to fill the gaps in the stock of his metaphysical bookstore, Shambhala Booksellers, which he had opened a year earlier. From Berkeley, the publishing house made its way east to Boulder, Colo., and then to Boston, where it has been based for the last 14 years.
Looking back over the past three decades, Peter Turner, who succeeded Bercholz as Shambhala's president last fall, told PW that Shambhala's role today is to bring these metaphysical texts "into the mainstream." To illustrate, he points to "two books by the Dalai Lama on the bestsellers list. Riverhead and Broadway publish books that could be Shambhala books." And while he emphasized that "we'll never stop publishing in our core areas," Turner said the house is looking to publish more fiction and possibly children's books. "Shambhala will become increasingly a general trade house," he noted.
Shambhala had published about 60 books annually, but increased its output to 85 titles this year. Turner expects to see a 15%-20% increase in sales this year and solid margins. And, said Turner, "When the opportunity arises we may try to acquire some smaller publishers."
Shambhala laid the roots for its expansion process last year when it bought rights to the 15 Sufi books that made up the entire backlist of Vermont-based Threshold Press. This fall, the house will launch the Shambhala Threshold series, including two volumes of p ms by the mystic Rumi.
In another unusual move, Shambhala is establishing a conference/seminar series in the U.S. and abroad featuring Shambhala authors. "Between Heaven and Earth," which will take place at the Sea of Galilee and Jerusalem in March 2000, will kick off with talks by Peter Matthiessen, Mother Tessa Bielecki and Andrew Harvey, among others.
Shambhala is also continuing its ambitious eight-volume collection of the works of Ken Wilber, author of A Brief History of Everything. It is also publishing Chellis Glendinning's new book on Western imperialism, Off the Map, as well as two books of Thomas Cleary's translations of Taoist classics and a 36-foot-long reproduction of the Buddhist Scroll with an introduction by Cleary.
