New situation offers longtime book publisher flexibility, ‘collaborative office environment’

Kregel Publications has moved its publishing and warehouse operations from its home of 31 years on Wealthy Street in southeast Grand Rapids, Mich., to a new facility at 2450 Oak Industrial Drive NE in Grand Rapids.

Beginning as a used book business in Grand Rapids in 1909, Kregel Publications entered the field of publishing with its first release in 1949: a reprint of a one-volume Bible commentary. Now in its third generation of family ownership, the publishing house has more than 900 titles in print under various Kregel imprints, as well as 500 titles published by Editorial Portavoz, its Spanish-language division.

Kregel also distributes more than 700 titles for Lion Hudson, a U.K. publisher based in Oxford, England.

“We are extremely excited to take advantage of the efficiencies that this new facility will provide-one-level warehousing, more economical order fulfillment and a collaborative office environment are major assets added by this move,” said Jerry Kregel, executive vice president of publishing and CFO. “We will also continue to provide support services for Kregel Parable Christian Stores and Kregel Ministry Resources from this location. This move is a significant commitment to the future of our company.”

“Having a large, open warehouse and expandable office area is a definite plus,” added Kregel Publisher Dennis Hillman. “We’ve remodeled the existing offices and warehouse with flexibility in mind. As the industry continues to change in the future, we will be well-positioned to shape our building to meet those needs and opportunities.”

Bible software company’s CEO: ‘We have great employees and want to keep them happy’

Logos Bible Software has been honored as one of the Best Medium-Sized Companies to Work For in 2014. The Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award is based on the voluntary input of current and former employees who provide feedback on their jobs, work environments and leadership via Glassdoor’s anonymous online survey.

What began as an after-hours project to sharpen the programming skills of a couple of Microsoft employees became Logos Bible Software in 1992. This small start-up project to make Bibles searchable would eventually lead an industry with innovations in multilingual electronic publishing, linguistics, semantic search, digital asset management and software development and design across every major consumer platform. Logos has grown to more than 360 employees with one campus near Seattle and another in Phoenix.

In 2011, Pritchett reduced the Logos employee manual to a four-word summary: Honor God. Love others. 

“We have great employees and want to keep them happy,” said Bob Pritchett, Logos Bible Software president and CEO. “Long policy documents don’t make people happy; trusting people and giving them autonomy makes them happy.”

The lack of policy papers tends to create transparency—best illustrated by “The $40,000 Mistake,” when an employee’s technical error cost Logos money, but also provided an opportunity to spotlight Logos’ cultural values and customer focus.

Logos employees also enjoy complete discretion regarding their own sick and vacation time and numerous other perks, including an unlimited supply of free beverages; an in-house bike-repair shop; supplies for kayaking, canoeing and disc golf; and an employee lounge, including free movie-, video- and book-lending.

“Logos attracts great employees because of the freedom and power they get to serve our customers, build great tools and get things done,” said Pritchett. “We love what we are creating for our customers, but we also love why we do it.”

Debut release won two Accolade Competition awards

Believe (Capitol Christian Distribution), the first DVD in the new children’s series, “Iesodo” (pronounced YAY-Sa-Doe), topped the sales lists for Christian retailers at the end of 2013. 

“We are enthusiastic about ‘Iesodo’s strong performance right out of the gate with our first DVD release, Believe,” said Eric Rollman, producer and CEO of Rollman Entertainment. “ ‘Iesodo’ is the No. 1 new kids animated property at Christian book stores in the fourth quarter, and our December performance exceeded expectations with the most number of units sold per week since its release in October. We’re seeing 100%-plus growth week over week, which positions us very well for our second release, Love, in January.”

“This series is taking off with kids of all ages because of the high production quality, fun adventures, memorable songs and lovable characters in each episode,” said Executive Producer Jared Hankins. “Our goal is to reach as many children as possible with the stories of Jesus, and we are excited that families are enjoying the series together.”

In addition to its success in stores, “Iesodo” has also received the Award of Excellence in Animation and the Award of Merit for an Original Song from the Accolade Competition.

The series features a cast of birds who share the teachings of Jesus through stories with the principles of loving one another, conquering fear and sharing. The birds live in a cypress tree on the shores of the lake (Galilee), where they follow the biblical teachings of a wise white dove named Iesodo.

“Many of Jesus’ teachings are told in stories or parables. ‘Iesodo’ has been inspired by great creative minds like C.S. Lewis who chose an allegorical world to demonstrate spiritual truths,” said Rob Loos, producer and writer for the series.

Zaya Toonz, the animation studio behind the series, released the next DVD, Love, on Jan. 21. A total of three DVDs are slated for release in 2014.

Program to be more accessible for smaller churches

Pioneer Clubs has revealed its first-ever Vacation Bible School (VBS) offering for 2014, The Wacky World of Water. Billed as being simple, collaborative, Bible-based, mission-focused, flexible and fun, the new VBS program targets smaller churches without huge volunteer forces as well as larger churches wanting to get back to basics.

“Many of us at Pioneer Clubs volunteer for VBS at our churches, and through discussions of how complex VBS has become, we realized most of us felt this way,” said Terry Logan, sales and marketing manager for Pioneer Clubs. “We love the kids, love the concept of VBS and the community outreach it has. However, preparing for VBS has almost become a year-round project.”

After surveying its church networks and finding a consensus, Pioneer Clubs found evidence of the negative effects of the complexity.

“The ‘icing on the cake’ in the research was from a Barna research that reflected small churches were not conducting VBS,” Logan said. This was “mainly due to cost and lack of volunteers—hence needing many volunteers to help with the complexity.”

Pioneer’s first entry into the VBS market seeks to strip away the complexity to make VBS a more feasible reality for small churches as well as large ones.

“Pioneer Clubs’ midweek programs has a strong connection with small churches, so Barna’s research resonated with us,” Logan said. “We are getting interest from large and small churches all desiring to take the complexity out of the weeklong program and bring back the strong adult-to-child relationship aspect. 

“Many people over the age of 45 can still remember their childhood VBS teachers’ names, mainly due to the relationships they built,” Logan added. “In the end Christ’s Kingdom has always been built through relationships.”

For a full list of VBS offerings, see our 2014 Vacation Bible School Product Guide at www.christianretailing.com.

Oxford University Press’ God’s Forever Family, Wheaton College professor Larry Eskridge’s history of the Jesus People movement, won Christianity Today’s Book of the Year award for 2014. The book also received the History/Biography award. 

Christianity Today (CT) also announced significant changes to the 25th edition of the Annual Book Awards, which started in 1989 as selected by a reader’s choice poll. The biggest addition is the first-ever CT Book of the Year, based on the book the judges agree upon the most. 

The program also introduced a Her.meneutics award, named after CT’s women’s site. The winner was Amy Simpson’s Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission (IVP Books), which recounts the author’s experience growing up with a schizophrenic parent and discusses how the church can best address mental illness.

The awards also now have a 2014 Christianity Today Book Award Winner seal, which will be given to publishers to place on their award-winning book for future pressings.

Matt Reynolds, books editor for the magazine, is running the awards for his third year.

“I have learned that every year, there are going to be a number of worthwhile books, any number of which that would be fine candidates to bestow awards upon,” said Reynolds. “Year after year I am amazed at the number of quality books. It increases your appreciation for the amount of good book writing being done.”

CT also has lifted the veil of anonymity from the judges’ comments on the winning books. The editorial team decided it wanted to recognize its judges—who include best-selling authors, experts in their fields and simply thoughtful people—for their hours spent reading and evaluating thousands of pages. 

Reynolds said that despite the change, the mission for the awards has stayed the same: “It’s still all about recognizing the books that most shape evangelical life, thought and culture.”

Crossway has announced that 1 million copies of the ESV Study Bible have been sold and distributed worldwide. This milestone takes on further significance as Crossway has provided more than $1.5 million from the ESV Study Bible proceeds to help underwrite Bible ministry distribution projects and the development of ESV Bible resources around the world—including support for the printing and distribution of more than 250,000 Chinese-English (ESV) Bibles in China.

“It is astonishing to see what the Lord is accomplishing with the ESV Bible in general, and with the ESV Study Bible in particular,” said Crossway President Lane Dennis. “In addition to the 1 million ESV Study Bible milestone, more than 90 million ESV Bibles have now been distributed and accessed worldwide in all formats, including print, web and digital.”

WinePress Publishing has closed its doors. Operating in Christian custom publishing since 1991, WinePress is owned by Sound Doctrine.

Current ownership of the Enumclaw, Wash.-based self-publishing company has had an ongoing and multifaceted dispute with the company’s co-founder Athena Dean, which apparently was alluded to in the statement on the company’s website. It reads in part: