In their search for more and younger readers—not to mention fresh ideas and renewed energy—religion publishers are always on the lookout for young professionals to add to their staff. The passion and skills of these under-40 editors—and, increasingly, publishers—can help advance the fortunes of an already very fortunate segment of publishing. In this, the third of our annual snapshots of religion publishing's "young turks," we meet another talented group that is moving and shaking the category in new directions.
Mark Tauber: Direct Connection
It's been a peripatetic existence for Mark Tauber these past few years. After a stint as marketing and publicity manager for Harper San Francisco, he made his way to New York City to help start beliefnet.com, the multifaith religion Web site. In 2002, he and two friends left beliefnet to start Waterfront Media, an online publisher of personal growth, self-help and spirituality e-mail newsletters. Two years ago, he returned to HSF as associate publisher.
But East Coast or West, trade publishing or e-publishing, the 36-year-old Tauber has culled the best from all of his experiences. "One of the biggest things I learned is the power of direct connection with the reader," Tauber said. "Trade publishing has historically worked through the retail channel, and obviously that is still true for all publishers. However, with the Internet, what we learned is that you can have direct connection to the consumer like never before. Now you have literally millions of consumers telling you what they think about your product immediately."
He also learned the value of speed. While many dot-commers moved too fast and made mistakes—and Tauber includes himself in this category—the Web taught him a respect for the race. "You had to keep moving fast and absorb as much as you could and leave behind what didn't work and move on," he said. "[In publishing] certainly there is a need for thoughtfulness and pondering, but I think I brought back a sense of the need to keep things moving and keep things moving fast."
Steve Hanselman, senior v-p and publisher of HarperBusiness, HarperResource and Harper San Francisco, has known Tauber since his first days with the company and said his drive and enthusiasm for publishing were deepened during his time away from HSF. "Mark has added a new-media consumer marketing orientation that's increasingly becoming part of our strategy," Hanselman said. "He has great energy and is a connector by nature."
For the future of the category, Tauber foresees books that go beyond mere description of a religious landscape. He said the authors he is most interested in take a stand, offering detailed analyses to support their position. "Readers want to hear an argument," he said. "They want to hear why such-and-such a church is in such-and-such position." He points to HSF authors David Gibson, whose The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (2003) is now in paperback, and Marcus Borg, whose The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith (2003) is that author's bestselling hardcover by more than 15,000 copies. Direct-to-consumer contact is crucial to sales, he believes. "That's one of the biggest things for me, to affect sales momentum at the beginning. It's that ability to hit people directly without spending $10,000 on a brochure." —Kimberly Winston
Allen Arnold: The Power of Focus
Allen Arnold keeps a favorite Chinese proverb on his desk. It reads: "The one who said it can't be done should get out of the way of the one who is doing it."
Naysayers might want to heed that advice and stay out of the way of Arnold, 39, publisher of WestBow Press, Thomas Nelson's fiction division that launched last December. Already, WestBow has more than doubled Nelson's 2003 fiction revenue.
"We've never had a 24/7 fiction division," said Arnold, who's been with Nashville, Tenn.—based Nelson for 12 years, previously as v-p of brand strategy and before that in other marketing positions. "The power of the focus and direction has been incredible."
Arnold leads a staff of seven, including three editors, and recognizes he has a unique perspective. "Most publishers don't come from a marketing background. It really makes a difference. It's critical that you can speak both languages."
Arnold grew up in Beaumont, Tex., and had an early love for story and for advertising. He studied marketing at Texas A&M, and took his first job with advertising giant Ogilvie & Mather in Dallas. "I thought I'd be there the rest of my life," he said. Then a month after he started, the firm closed its Dallas office. Arnold went on to another ad agency. "I loved the craft and magic of marketing and advertising," he said. "But after five years I realized I didn't care if people bought more sugar water or sneakers."
Arnold, who had grown up as a church-going Christian, had come to the realization that faith "was about relationship and not religion. It's about having your life transformed by Christ." But he also knew church work wasn't his calling. "I wanted to make a positive impact in the world by creating products that made a difference in people's lives." He decided on evangelical Christian publishing, and a yearlong search led him to Word Inc., where he started on his 27th birthday. "It was one of the best birthday gifts I could have given to myself," he said. Nelson acquired Word in 1992, shortly after Arnold came aboard.
While WestBow is one of Nelson's smaller divisions, Arnold has big plans. "One of my goals is to be one of the largest divisions in five to seven years," he said. Another is to be CBA's top publisher of fiction—and to be one of the top 20 in the general market.
"Allen is taking our company's fiction program to an entirely new level," said Michael S. Hyatt, president and COO of Thomas Nelson. "His creativity and drive have already had an impact on our other publishing divisions. I predict that it will soon spill over into the industry as well."
WestBow aims to publish stories that are entertaining, culturally relevant and God-honoring. "Let's find people who, first and foremost, tell a great story," said Arnold. "If they're writing from a Christian worldview, that'll infuse the story." The division is publishing 24 new novels a year by authors such as Tim Downs, Michael Morris and Ted Dekker.
Another part of the WestBow strategy is partnering with the entertainment industry. Already, Charles Martin's The Dead Don't Dance is in the works to be a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie.
"We try to have stories that are very real, very earthy," said Arnold. "But I don't want novels that make people feel like they have to take a bath after reading them. If they were movies, you could watch them with your 16-year-old and not be embarrassed." —Heather Grennan Gary
Karen Bouris: Doing It All
If there's a job to do in publishing, Karen Bouris has done it. In her 15 years in publishing, she has done everything from picking up the phone to picking out the next bestseller. "I started working for Conari while I was still in school at Berkeley," where she majored in—what else?—English lit, she said. "I worked in [co-founder] Mary Jane [Ryan]'s house; I was employee number one. I cut my teeth at Conari. I did everything from stuffing thousands of envelopes to designing catalogues and writing copy, helping with acquisitions and radio tours. All I knew was I liked to read books."
After stints in publicity and marketing at KQED Books and Video, Harper San Francisco and Sourcebooks, Bouris, now 36, started her own content-development company to create editorial material for alternative health and women's issues Web sites. She also wrote Just Kiss Me and Tell Me You Did the Laundry (Rodale, 2004), based on her experience juggling housework, marriage, career and the raising of two small kids.
So when she and her family packed up and left the San Francisco Bay Area for Maui in June 2003, it might have been for a well-deserved rest, right? Wrong. Bouris is now publisher of Inner Ocean Books, the Hawaii-based publisher of personal growth, spirituality and women's issues titles. And she shows no signs of slowing down to a Polynesian pace. "I am a jack-of-all-trades, and that is very valuable at a small press," she noted. "We wear many hats and that is where I thrive. It gives us a certain energy and I hope we can bring that energy and enthusiasm and passion to our publishing."
Said Inner Ocean founder John Elder, "Karen's background has really put us much closer to the concerns of the marketplace. I think we are finding a much greater reception for our books, the packaging, the authors, and she is guiding that."
In August, Inner Ocean's MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Become a Catalyst for Change (Mar.) hit the New York Times bestseller list. Two more books in what Bouris calls the "spiritual activism" line are in the works, including one on improving women's lives and one on gay and lesbian equality. All reflect her belief in personal and community empowerment. "There have been a couple of decades of great introspection in the personal growth and spirituality categories," she said. "Now it is time to move out into the community and the world."
That enthusiasm is focused. "This feels like a very scary time in publishing," she said. "I think coming up with innovative solutions to create more revenue so we can support our publishing habit—that's what we have got to focus on right now. That's my big challenge." —Kimberly Winston
Ben Irwin: Keeping It Authentic
Ben Irwin likes to read contemporary fiction. That avocation comes in handy for his day job: serving as co-leader of a new group at Zondervan that is trying to reach Generation Xers with the message of the Bible.
Lately the 27-year-old Irwin has been reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the story of a boy in India who grapples with the tenets of various faiths. "It's not an orthodox Christian statement, but the author has one of the greatest comments I've read about Jesus—about the irony of the Christian message, where God comes to earth and dies," Irwin said. "The book makes a provocative statement about what God went through to connect with us. Its success is an interesting comment on the culture's interest in spirituality."
Irwin's job is to translate what Zondervan sees as the strong spiritual interest of 18- to 34-year-olds into sales of Bibles and Bible-related products. The company recently divided its Bible division into a team focused on that age group and another organized around the market 35 years old and up. Irwin said that his target is the estimated eight million in the younger age group that are on the verge of disengaging from the church and are generally suspicious of organized religion, and another 32 million who are generally interested in spirituality but who do not go to any church.
A Philadelphia native, Irwin grew up in Beaumont, Tex. (apparently a hotbed of nascent publishers—see Allen Arnold profile), and graduated from Taylor University, an evangelical college in Indiana, with a degree in business and political science. Instead of following his first inclination—to take a job with a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.—he attended Grand Rapids (Mich.) Theological Seminary and graduated in 2002 with a master's in theology. Not sensing a call to pastoral ministry, he joined Zondervan's Bible group.
Irwin emerged at the company as a strong voice in favor of going hard after 20-somethings—a market that Zondervan and many other publishers have paid little attention to because they have a reputation as the vanguard of today's younger generation of nonreaders. "He demonstrated an energy level and a passion for that age group and category early on," said Doug Lockhart, Zondervan's senior v-p of marketing.
Feeding Irwin's conviction that this group is spiritually hungry and willing to read about God were memories of his own questions about the relevance of his faith, even while attending seminary. He also recalls the enthusiasm of his wife, Amanda—"who has struggled to read the Bible and find it engaging"—for The Word on the Street, a Bible paraphrase by British actor Rob Lacey that is to be published by Zondervan this fall.
Handed the job of product development manager for Zondervan's REAL team—Relevant, Engaging, Authentic Living—working with Brad Doll, director of Bible marketing, Irwin now is drawing on eclectic sources to help his team shape products and marketing that will attract 18- to 34-year-olds. He connects with a group of artists and musicians in the United Kingdom who run a church—and a pub. And Irwin frequently talks with a friend who leads the 20-something ministry at Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, famous for its effectiveness in reaching church-phobic "seekers."
"I want to open people's eyes to new perspectives on the Bible," Irwin told PW. "A position like this is the best possible way to accomplish that." —Dale Buss
Lil Copan: Looking for the Voice
Lil Copan is more likely to rework book ideas with an author who has a style and voice than to nurture a would-be writer who has a strong concept but little flair. "One of my writers said to me: 'I know you, Lil Copan, and you're susceptible to poetry,' " said Copan. "I think the topic will follow. I'm looking for a voice and a passion."
Four years ago, Copan's aesthetic sense led to her job as acquisitions editor at Paraclete Press, which is owned by the Cape Cod, Mass.—based Community of Jesus, an ecumenical Christian organization that practices the Benedictine traditions of hospitality and praying the liturgy of the hours. Much of the publishing staff lives in community there, though Copan resides in the Boston area.
Copan, 39, traces her attraction to religion publishing to a college internship with Curbstone Press in Willimantic, Conn., and to her own religious background. She grew up in the Russian Baptist church (in which her Ukrainian father is a minister), but later moved to ecumenism and toward more liturgical churches. Now she attends three churches—Episcopal, Catholic and Conservative Baptist—in the Boston area.
Copan initially taught college English, but realized that was not the career she wanted. In 1995, she took a job with Harold Shaw Publishers. "At the time, it was sort of the one religious press that had interest in literary things," she said. The managing editor at the time, Joan Guest, "took me from hardly knowing a thing to working with some good writers and making it happen." Copan worked on Madeline L'Engle's books and wrote, co-authored and edited a number of titles, mostly compilations. "Then I got keen on acquisitions, and even though I wasn't an acquisitions editor there, they gave me a lot of leeway," Copan said. "I'm a fan of the small press that can just kind of take the time."
After Random House's WaterBrook Press bought Shaw in 2000, Copan worked briefly at the literary publisher David R. Godine. "They couldn't pay me enough, so I had to leave. Major bummer. Great little Boston press." She got a call from Paraclete, which had never had an acquiring editor position and wanted to expand. Copan said it was a "great fit" because of the house's focus on interfaith dialogue, classical Christian spirituality and books with depth and staying power.
Lillian Miao, CEO and publisher, said Copan grasped "the editorial vision of Paraclete right off, which to me is not an easy thing to do. We are a lot broader than most religion houses," and much of the work springs from Paraclete's identity as a religious community.
Copan has acquired such authors as Frederica Mathewes-Green, Lauren F. Winner, Vinita Hampton Wright, Jana Riess and Mary Blye Howe for Paraclete, and is discussing a book idea with Frederick Buechner. Miao said, "Because we are a small religion house, we don't attract big names. But I think Lil has been very good at working with big-name authors, asking them to do things that fit Paraclete's editorial vision."
Copan conceived the new biannual Paraclete Fiction Award with the goal of developing writers of literary merit, providing books with general appeal and making Paraclete noted for strong fiction. The first award, for a Christian-themed novel by a writer previously unpublished by a major house, was announced at this year's Calvin Festival of Faith & Writing. In February 2005, Paraclete will publish Minnie Lamberth's winning book, with the working title At Home in the Center of the Universe.
Copan said she's most comfortable with religion, and wants to continue delivering books with a classic feel. "I love acquisitions. I love ideas. I love working with writers. Sometimes it's a great writer who doesn't know what he or she wants to do next, and, after talking, we come up with three ideas. I love that." —Juli Cragg Hilliard
David Long: Maverick on a Mission
David Long has been a lover of words virtually all his life. It is a trait that led him to earn an English degree from Penn State University and to work after graduation as an editorial assistant with a Philadelphia-area medical publisher.
During his studies at the university, where he pursued a concentration in creative writing, Long moved that passion for words beyond reading into writing and editing. He edited the university's literary journal and received two undergraduate writing awards for his short fiction.
Long, now 30, met his wife, Sarah, at Penn State and moved to her native Minneapolis, where he served for several years as a marketing copywriter with Bethany House Publishers before last year becoming an acquisitions editor for the publisher's line of what he has termed "emergent fiction."
"If there's one thing I've learned, it's that we lack the vocabulary to carry on a meaningful conversation about Christian fiction that isn't CBA fiction," Long said. "In my discussions in-house, I began to pitch a useful but neutral term, hoping it'd catch on."
For the record, Long defines emergent fiction as realistic, apolitical fiction featuring flawed Christians who are deeply engaged in their faith. It must be well written by authors who are committed to their art and craft.
"The term came together for me in the wake of reading Dan Kimball's The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations," Long explained. "The call for authenticity is a chord that runs through both the emerging church and emergent fiction." He noted, "I feel CBA fiction is still too unrealistic, and I hope to help change that."
To that end, last year Long started a Web log called Faith in Fiction, in which he addresses issues facing readers and writers. Through the blog, he got a submission from a comedic historical novelist he is publishing at Bethany House. "I am trying to reach authors who ordinarily wouldn't submit to a Christian publisher," he said.
Long is a native of Freehold, N.J., the hometown of rocker Bruce Springsteen, whose maverick streak he has come to identify with. Raised in the Presbyterian Church, Long said he rebelled against "the orthodoxy of it" before later returning to his roots as a Presbyterian. Long himself has published two novels, both with Bethany House. The first, Ezekiel's Shadow, won the 2002 Christy Award for best first fiction; his lastest, Quinlin's Estate, also drew critical acclaim.
Asked what he sees on the horizon, Long paused before speaking. "CBA fiction is our bread and butter, but thematically our books are getting edgier and more true to life," he said. "I see a continued erosion between the boundaries separating Christian fiction in the CBA and general markets."
Long's boss at Bethany, fiction editorial director David Horton, credits him with making a difference at the house: "We've envisaged a broader fiction publishing program for years, and we've taken some small steps. But Dave's insight and creative thinking are really helping us to define, identify and serve the readers and writers that we must bring together to realize our vision." —Sean Fowlds
