Carol Stream, Ill. (September 12, 2016)—Tyndale House Publishers (@tyndalehouse) has announced that it is reorganizing to align its two nonfiction acquisitions and marketing teams into one group. On September 6, senior VP and group publisher Ron Beers and publisher of the Tyndale Momentum nonfiction imprint, Jan Long Harris, combined their teams, resources, and years of experience into one nonfiction group: Tyndale Momentum.
“For many years Tyndale House has had two different teams working on the publication of our nonfiction titles,” said Tyndale chairman/CEO Mark Taylor. “Each team was outstanding and had great success. But now we are combining those two teams under the leadership of Ron Beers and Jan Long Harris to get even greater synergy. I’m very enthusiastic about what this combined team will do in carrying out Tyndale’s mission.”
As part of the restructure, Tyndale’s book publishing efforts will consolidate under Beers, including fiction, nonfiction, and kids. Doug Knox will lead the Bible, Alliance, and Gift & Specialty divisions while exploring new business opportunities for Tyndale.
“We’ve come to the point where together we can accomplish more than we can separately,” said Beers. “This is a strategic move to better position Tyndale’s nonfiction program for the future with a more agile, expert, and diversely skilled team in an era of intense competition and high expectations of authors and agents. Another way of putting it is we are combining all the members of two great teams into one powerhouse team so we can be even stronger in serving our authors and fulfilling our corporate mission.”
Employees in both groups will be continuing primarily in their same areas of expertise, from acquisitions to marketing to author relations.
Added Beers, “The change should be seamless for authors—and an advantage as well—as we begin to share knowledge and business functions that allow us to focus even more pointedly on each author’s book.”
Publisher Jan Long Harris, who is credited with growing the Tyndale Momentum imprint to be a strong force in the Christian publishing industry, added, “In this time of change, Christian stories and messages are more important than ever, and our responsibility to shepherd those well—and help them get heard—is one I take very seriously. I’m thrilled that we’ll have the chance to dig into new opportunities with all of the knowledge, experience, and talent represented by this new superteam.”
In addition to Long Harris’s promotion to executive publisher, Sarah Atkinson has been promoted to associate publisher of nonfiction. Jon Farrar will continue to acquire books in his areas of expertise. Carol Traver, while continuing to do some acquisitions, will take on a new role as senior developmental editor for Tyndale Momentum, offering a greater level of custom editorial service to select authors in the shaping of their manuscripts. Marketing for the now expanded imprint will be led by senior directors of marketing Nancy Clausen and Maria Eriksen. Sharon Leavitt, senior author relations manager, will take the lead on author care for Tyndale books (nonfiction, fiction, and children’s). For more information on this combined team, visit the updated website at www.tyndalemomentum.com.
This merger is one of several moves that Tyndale House Publishers has recently made to position the house as a leader in book publishing. Karen Watson continues to be an industry leader in fiction and, as part of this move, has been promoted to publisher of Tyndale Fiction. Karen and her seasoned fiction acquisitions team, including Jan Stob and Stephanie Broene, are among the best in the business who thrive on innovating, discovering new voices, and driving growth in the overall fiction category.
In the children’s and youth area, Linda Howard has been promoted to associate publisher, leading a highly creative and gifted team that is looking at significant growth over the next several years.
Tyndale House Publishers, founded in 1962, is one of the largest privately held Christian publishers of books, Bibles, and digital media in the world. Tyndale Momentum, Tyndale’s nonfiction imprint, is the publisher of many New York Times bestsellers and is known for integrity in building lasting personal relationships with authors and agents. Tyndale extends the ministry of its authors by contributing most of its profits to the nonprofit Tyndale House Foundation, which makes grants to help meet the physical and spiritual needs of people around the world. Originally founded to publish The Living Bible, a contemporary paraphrase of the Bible that became a global publishing phenomenon, Tyndale now publishes the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT), the translation of choice for millions of people.
