Expansion aims to provide authors with ‘even more opportunities to be acquired by traditional publishers’

HarperCollins Christian Publishing announced plans Jan. 6 to expand WestBow Press. The strategic self-publishing alliance between HarperCollins Christian and Author Solutions will begin to service the Zondervan publishing group as it currently does Thomas Nelson.

In 2009, Author Solutions and Thomas Nelson formed an alliance to offer a publishing alternative to new authors. Under the WestBow imprint, the companies were able to provide a self-publishing services division and use it to discover emerging Christian authors.

Manuscripts published through WestBow Press are presented to publishing teams at Thomas Nelson for possible editorial acquisition. Authors such as Marcia Moston, William Sirls, Tony Townsley and Mark St. Germain earned contracts with Thomas Nelson, and in 2012, Annie Downs was selected by Zondervan.

With the success experienced by these authors, HarperCollins Christian Publishing sought to capitalize on WestBow Press’ talent discovery.

“By expanding WestBow Press to support Zondervan in addition to Thomas Nelson, we are able to provide the WestBow authors with even more opportunities to be acquired by traditional publishers,” said Pete Nikolai, director of publishing services and manager of WestBow Press. “We regularly suggest top WestBow Press titles to the acquisition teams at Thomas Nelson and will now do the same for the teams at Zondervan.”

WestBow Press will begin working with both publishing houses immediately and will present manuscripts to all HarperCollins Christian Publishing teams.

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