Eight years ago, PW interviewed 11 heads of religion/ spirituality publishing houses, lines or imprints, all then under 50 ("The New, the Young & the Restless Speak Out," April 14, 1997). That was a time of millennial expectation, as publishers and others looked forward to the turn of the century with curiosity and, in a few cases, trepidation. As it turned out, Y2K fears were unfounded, and Armageddon has not yet come, but other signal events have had an impact on the business of religion publishing. We caught up with four not-quite-as-young turks from our original group (or, as one joked, "middle-aged moguls") to trace their career trajectories and get their takes on how publishing and bookselling in their still-burgeoning category has changed.
Thriving at Penguin
When he started in the book business, Joel Fotinos was so young his mother had to drive him to work. That was in Scott's Bluff, Neb., where Fotinos, then all of 14 years old, spent his after-school hours as a book buyer for the local indie, the Book Nook. "It was the most heavenly job imaginable," Fotinos said.
He was 31 and had been at Penguin Putnam for less than a year when PW first interviewed Fotinos in 1997. Personally recruited as publisher for the Tarcher imprint by Phyllis Grann (from Harper San Francisco, where he was then marketing manager), Fotinos thrived there both during her reign and after her departure. Now, at 39, he is the director of religious publishing for the Penguin Group (USA) and v-p and publisher of Tarcher. Before Harper SF, he did a stint as a buyer for the Tattered Cover, where he helped mount that store's first lunchtime spirituality events.
In 1997, Fotinos predicted that America's "buffet-style" approach to spirituality would continue to drive the market for religion books. It has, he said—with one caveat: "It doesn't make me psychic to say we are going to continue to see a surge in the Christian publishing area. But publishers are going to have to find smarter and smarter ways to reach customers, and that isn't always in bookstores—though God bless every bookstore chain and indie." Instead, he said, publishers will have to form ever closer ties with authors who already have a following, and work as partners to reach those potential customers. "It is no longer the case that a publisher can do it on their own," he said.
That's been the approach to marketing superpastor T.D. Jakes, who Fotinos recruited as an author in 1997. Jakes's newest, He-Motions: Even Strong Men Struggle (2004), has done so well—thanks in part to Jakes's many speaking engagements, television appearances and pulpit platform in a 30,000-member Dallas megachurch—that there are no plans to take it to paperback until 2006. "He-Motions is like a movement in itself," Fotinos said.
Fotinos also predicted that religion marketing would become even more niche oriented. Was he right? "In some ways," he answers. "When I came [to Penguin], we didn't even have computers on our desks. We didn't know that things like Amazon.com were going to change the marketplace in very profound ways." The rise of Internet retailers and the domination of the chains, as well as the entry of big boxes and price clubs into the religion book market, have forced bookstores to focus their inventories and services even more narrowly. "There has been a sharpening of the [general] independent booksellers that are still around and of the CBA booksellers," he said. "They have had to become better at what they do, to specialize and become even more excellent."
Last July, Fotinos marked a quarter century in book publishing. In that time, he has learned that the best guarantee of good religion publishing is passion. "That's what actually sells books. You can publish books smartly, you can publish books luckily, but the best way to sell books is passionately."
From Church to University
After nine years in Protestant denominational publishing, Richard Brown switched four years ago to a Catholic university press. He also became a Catholic, but that had more to do with his Catholic wife than his career choice, he said.
Now director at Georgetown University Press, Brown, 45, still acquires and edits religion titles, but he also works on books in other favorite subject areas, including political science, international affairs and bioethics. On the religion side, Georgetown specializes in books about progressive Catholic issues, world religions, and religion and politics.
The intersection of religion and politics is a burgeoning topic for religion publishers, Brown said, and he sees a lot more gray than red and blue. "It's not just a matter of how did the Christian right vote in the last presidential election," he said. "The analysis is much more sophisticated and serious about how culture and politics are integrated." Titles in Georgetown's Religion and Politics Series have examined President Bush's faith-based initiatives and the role of the religious right in local school boards.
Current events have contributed to the growth of books about Islam—another big change since Brown was profiled by PW in 1997, when at 37 he was director of Westminster John Knox Press, the trade arm of the Presbyterian Church USA. "Even before 2001, there was a much greater recognition and appreciation, though in some cases demonization, of Islam," Brown said. "Islam is an enormous religious, theological and political force. And we in the West know very little about it." Georgetown's books include Aspects of Islam.
Brown began his career while still a grad student in religious ethics at the University of Virginia, where he worked as an editor for a political affairs research institute. He was editor of Pilgrim Press, affiliated with the United Church of Christ, for four years, and then served as director of WJKP from 1996 to 2001. Working for two denominations with declining memberships taught him that publishing houses can play a role in helping to clarify and solidify the denomination's identity. "There's no way a publisher can stop the flow of denominational losses, but [the publisher] can help ask, 'Who are we, what are our traditions and how can we help carry that into the future?''' he said. "Before, it seemed that denominational presses wanted to 'play' trade publisher and take on New York. Now there's a wiser mentality of 'let's be denominational presses.' "
Georgetown's biggest challenge—and one facing many university presses—is the issue of electronic delivery. "Are we just going to continue to pump out 250-page books, or are we going to figure out how to tune in to the electronic needs of students and scholars?" he said. "We have a long way to go to figure that out."
Time on His Side
As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, Rolf Zettersten read a biography of Henry Luce and thought it'd be really cool to work for the founder of Time magazine someday. That day came five years ago, when Zettersten was wooed away from his post as publisher of Thomas Nelson's trade division to become publisher of Warner Faith, then a new launch of Time Warner Book Group.
"When I got here, it was me and an assistant and two phones," Zettersten said. He has since been joined in the imprint's Nashville office by a crew of 16. In 2002, Zettersten acquired the backlist of Joyce Meyer, which immediately lifted the fortunes of the fledgling imprint. Last year, Warner Faith published Joel Osteen's Your Best Life Now, currently giving Rick Warren a run for his money on the bestseller lists. And this January, Warner launched Center Street, a "values-oriented" but not explicitly religious imprint of self-help, health and fitness, motivational and fiction titles. Zettersten, also publisher of Center Street, said its focus, as well as the popularity of books like Osteen's, indicate an awakening in the market. "There has been a sea change in the last five years. The general market booksellers—ABA indies, the big box stores—have seen the success they have had with books like The Prayer of Jabez, The Purpose-Driven Life and Your Best Life Now, and are realizing they can sell millions of these books. They realize that Christians are shopping in their stores and looking for Christian books there."
At the same time, the sky has darkened for many small booksellers, especially in the CBA. In 1997, Zettersten, then 41, told PW he thought that "just-in-time" inventory control would help publishers lower their returns while leading to "smarter buying and better books." Now he sees that system as part of the undoing of little indies. "The small retailer could never keep up with it" because of lack of staff or software, he said. "This was at a time when Wal-Mart and other big sellers were coming in and challenging them. When you are not stocking the bestsellers, you are not in the game, so I don't think it turned out to be the panacea it was promoted to be. I was wrong."
Zettersten, like Fotinos, thinks the market will continue to cleave into smaller subcategories. "Never underestimate the power of the niche market," he said. "We have such a large consumer base that if you have a well-written book directed to a thin slice of that overall market, it can still be wildly successful." That's happened with Falling in Love for All the Right Reasons by Dr. Neal Clark Warren (Center Street, Jan.), aimed at singles seeking not just a mate, but a spiritual connection with their life partner. (Zettersten declined to provide sales figures.) "One might argue that is not a broad enough market," Zettersten said. "But Neal's books do very well because that market is still intense enough to create a success."
Church-Owned Challenges
At 21, Neil Alexander really was a Young Turk when he started working for the United Methodist Church. He rose through the ranks and, at 48, became president and publisher of United Methodist Publishing House, Abingdon Press and the church's then 71 (75 now) Cokesbury bookstores. When PW interviewed him in 1997, he had been publisher for a little more than a year. Today, at 57 and with grandchildren and a slew of staff colleagues under 30, he knows he's moved into the "not exactly young" category.
Still, Alexander tries to have his finger on the pulses of buyers both young and old, and knows well the challenges facing mainline Protestant churches—and their publishing houses. "Church-owned publishing houses have had to relinquish any claims to a 'captive audience,' " he admits. "Customers are much more willing to draw from sources across the old denomination and theology boundary lines."
Eight years ago, Alexander noted that "contemporary life doesn't make religious experience irrelevant, it makes it indispensable." That's even truer today, he believes.
Yet readers have become more discriminating over the past decade, Alexander believes—and rightly so. They're looking for books that resonate with their own lives, he said. "We offer an array of books and other materials that intentionally represent diverse viewpoints," he said. "This provides opportunity for different voices to be heard and for their ideas to be studied, prayed about and evaluated.
Denominations, including the United Methodists, often find themselves in the middle of controversies over such issues as homosexuality, war and peace, and bioethics. Alexander predicts that fragmentation, sometimes even alienation, among various interest groups will only intensify. "Finding ways to foster curiosity, generosity, and engagement of ideas and commitments across the 'battle lines' is an important and central driver in our work," he said. "It is an exciting time to be a part of bringing ideas and teaching to the fore to help people answer the question, 'How, then, shall we live?' "
