Making a Mark on Christian Publishing
How Byron Williamson Contributed to the Rapid Expansion of the Christian Book Marketplace
As a boy from a small North Texas farming village in the 1950s, living with his school teacher mom in a shack with no electricity or indoor plumbing, Byron Williamson was born to help create a new vision for Christian publishing. This new vision for Christian publishing should be seen in light of what was already an age-old industry—beginning in the 1450s with Johann Gutenberg’s first use of the moveable type printing press.
In December 2021 the weekly news series CBS Sunday Morning, hosted by Jane Pauley, broadcast a feature story on the remarkable current influence of contemporary Christian media. It featured Joel and Luke Smallbone of the 4-time Grammy-winning group, for King & Country, whose Priceless album inspired a popular theatrical movie on human trafficking. Luke and Joel’s spin-off novel, also entitled Priceless, was published and promoted by entrepreneurial Christian publisher, Byron Williamson.
This CBS segment also featured Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, who combined have sold tens of millions of albums. In addition, each has authored bestselling books, their first published by Williamson. In years to come Byron also published such music artists as Nichole Nordeman, Steven Curtis Chapman, Bob Carlisle, Bart Millard, Matthew West, and CeCe Winans.
On CBS Sunday Morning Amy and Smitty affirmed the Smallbones’ new theatrical motion picture as well as the far-reaching impact of contemporary Christian music, books, and media on global culture.
Expanding the Christian Book Marketplace
For centuries Christian books were almost exclusively sold through boutique religious bookstores. More expansive Christian book retailing in secular stores didn’t kick-in until the late 1980s, fostered by several surprise bestsellers appearing simultaneously in mainstream retail, including books by the artists just featured by CBS—Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith.
At newly launched Worthy Publishing, Williamson had seen the potential for such innovative titles, signing both and engineered prominent space in mainstream retail for Grant’s children’s book, Heart to Heart Bible Stories, as well as Smith’s book for young adults, Old Enough to Know. Both sold over one million copies, pleasing such mainstream retailers of that time as B. Dalton, Walden, Walmart, and Target.
Innovative successes at Worthy also included the development of the Gold Medallion Award winning, easy-reading International Children’s Bible (ICB), which was aggressively promoted nationally on radio by Dr. James C. Dobson. Over the years the ICB has sold over 15 million copies (currently from Harper-Collins Christian).
Shortly after the release of the ICB, Williamson imagined and developed a remarkably simple English translation for adults, the New Century Version (NCV) of the Bible, which was promoted at launch on national television by Billy Graham. The NCV has also sold millions of copies.
Byron couldn’t have imagined that in years to come he would lead the publication of thousands of books, many of which hit such bestseller lists as the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and other popular charts.
Word Music & Books Acquires Worthy
These early successes grabbed the attention of Word Entertainment, a division of CapCities/ABC (now the Walt Disney Company). Word saw what Worthy Publishing was accomplishing in the general market and acquired it in 1988, moving Worthy and Williamson to its new offices in Irving, Texas. Williamson was later made President of the Word Publishing imprint.
As noted, in the 1980s Christian books had been merchandised almost exclusively through religious stores. However, in the early 1990s Williamson pressed Word to initiate more aggressive merchandising in Walmart, Sams, Borders, and Target, quickly experiencing dramatic growth.
Several of Word’s authors hit national bestseller lists, including the New York Times. They include, among many others, Billy Graham, Max Lucado, Charles R. Swindoll, Charles Colson, Dr. James C. Dobson, Pat Robertson, The MacArthur Study Bible by Pastor John MacArthur, as well as Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan, who was featured on the cover of Parade Magazine.
In the mid-90s Frank Peretti, author of This Present Darkness, moved over to work with Williamson. His first novel with Word Books, The Oath, was hot enough in 1995 to be featured on the front page of the New York Times, along with several other works of fiction from Word.
This high-profile national exposure demonstrated the strength of Williamson’s team and its leverage to expand shelf space with the leading general retailers.
Nelson Acquires Word and Goes Public on the NYSE
Byron Williamson’s role in industry growth is noted in this 2022 Special Edition of Publishers Weekly.
In late 1992 Word was acquired by Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville, TN. Soon thereafter Williamson moved to Nashville and was named President of the Thomas Nelson/Word Publishing Group (currently joined with Zondervan to form Harper-Collins Christian Publishers).
An eye-opener came in 1995 when Williamson found himself on the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange, alongside Nelson’s founding CEO and Chairman, Sam Moore. That a Christian book company could reach such a notable national profile—being listed on the NYSE—was a shock to many!
Upon hiring the first executive solely dedicated to general market sales strategies for Christian books, including Costco, Sams, Target, and Walmart, Nelson/Word sales rocketed from $123 to over $170 million. The Nelson/Word Group became the largest Christian trade book publisher in the world by fiscal 1999, not to mention ranking in the top ten among all New York-based trade publishers.
A revolutionary innovation came when Williamson challenged his team to present a creative merchandising ideas to retailers—one being the ‘store-within-a-store’ concept. Birmingham, AL-based Books-a-Million (BAM) embraced that idea and successfully employed this Christian book ‘store-within-a-store’ concept in 200+ locations—calling them The Testament Shoppes.
45-Million Copy Bestseller, Jesus Calling, Originated by Integrity
In fiscal 1999 Williamson resigned from Thomas Nelson, and in 2001 recruited a remarkable leadership team and founded Integrity Publishers as a division of Integrity Media, Inc. in Mobile, AL. By Spring 2007 this new enterprise had achieved annual sales of $25 million.
In 2002 an amazing story began to unfold. A couple of half-page writing samples came across Byron’s desk from Sarah Young, an American missionary in Perth, Australia. He quickly imagined a unique daily devotional book concept with the title—Jesus Calling, inspired by his own mother’s reading preferences. He pitched this idea to Sarah; she agreed and began to write the necessary 365 unique devotional readings.
The result was Jesus Calling—released in the fall of 2004—one of the best-selling books in any category—religious or secular—first published in the 21st century. Sales of this perpetual New York Times bestseller, now published by Harper-Collins Christian, have surpassed 45 million copies, including spin-off lines and related products.
Integrity also published such classics as Beth Moore’s Get Out of That Pit, Max Lucado’s It’s Not About Me, David Jeremiah’s Captured by Grace, Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s God Will Make A Way, Newt Gingrich’s Rediscovering God in America. Other amazing books came Byron’s way, including Amy Hollingsworth’s The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers, Think Like Jesus by George Barna, Larry Crabb’s Soul Talk, and Emerson Eggerichs’ Love and Respect.
Entrepreneurial Success at Worthy
In fiscal 2007 Integrity was sold to what is now Harper-Collins Christian Publishing, after which Williamson launched a brand new initiative.
In 2009 Williamson Worthy Publishing was re-born with a gifted new team who successfully adapted to the radical transition of publishing into the digital age. The innovation of downloadable eBooks and audio books, along with the effects of Amazon and its pricing strategies, triggered the closure of the Borders and B. Dalton bookstore chains, as well as shutting down hundreds of independent Christian bookstores.
In 2015 Williamson partnered with the new Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. to produce an exclusive new MotB imprint with its first titles releasing at the museum’s Grand Opening in 2017.
Worthy Publishing launched a creative new imprint, WorthyKids, acquiring the Ideals Children’s Books from Guideposts Magazine. WorthyKids soon became a top eight national children’s seasonal book publisher. For example, over the years one board book, The Story of Christmas, sold more than 1.8 million copies.
Byron was committed to expanding the impact of Black authors in the Christian book space. He signed Gospel artist BeBe Winans’ timely book, The Whitney I Knew, released shortly after the sudden death of his life-long friend, Whitney Houston. In addition Worthy published Dr. Kenneth Ulmer, who pastored the influential Faith Central Baptist Bible Church in Los Angeles, NFL star Randall Cunningham, and Michael Vick’s biography, Finally Free, just after Vick’s release from prison.
Worthy also acquired Ellie Claire gift books, which led to strong devotional gift book positions at Barnes & Noble and major gift book retailers around the world.
Worthy published multiple titles with Jerry Jenkins, whose Left Behind novels (Tyndale House) sold over 70 million copies. Other bestsellers included the 900,000-copy Jeremiah Study Bible, John Hagee’s Four Blood Moons (17 weeks on the NYT list), and titles by Max Lucado, Mike Huckabee, Stephen Mansfield, Katherine Schwarzenegger and, as noted above, Grammy-winning for King and Country.
Even as a smaller publisher, Worthy was known for its innovative management team and aggressive merchandising, competing with Penguin-Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, and Macmillan.
In 2018 Worthy was acquired by Hachette Publishers USA, the third largest American book publisher, home of such authors as James Patterson.
Recognition for Industry Leadership
In 2012, soon after the re-launch of Worthy Publishing, Williamson received the Greater Nashville Chamber of Commerce’s NEXT AWARD for Entrepreneurial Start-Up of the Year in Digital Media and Entertainment.
Byron Williamson was elected Chair of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) in 2016, an organization that includes such major imprints as Waterbrook and Multnomah (divisions of Penguin Random House), Tyndale House, Harper-Collins Christian Publishers (Thomas Nelson/Zondervan), FaithWords/Worthy (divisions of Hachette USA), and almost all of the other major Christian publishers.
In recognition of Williamson’s contributions to the Christian book industry, in 2021 the ECPA board of directors presented Byron with The Chair’s Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Byron Williamson is featured in “How Religion Publishing Became a Billion-Dollar Industry,” Publishers Weekly, 150th Anniversary Issue, pages 249-253, April 2022.