My Story

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 Dale Williamson was called to help create a new vision for Christian publishing. This vision should be seen in light of what was already an age-old industry—which had begun in the 1450s with Johann Gutenberg’s first use of the moveable-type printing press—printing the first Holy Bible.

In December 2021, the weekly news series CBS Sunday Morning, hosted by Jane Pauley, broadcasts a feature story on the remarkable 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 have sold tens of millions of albums. In addition, they authored bestselling books with Williamson.

During this CBS Sunday Morning segment Amy and Smitty affirm the Smallbones’ motion picture and the far-reaching impact of Christian music, books, and media on global culture.

In years to come Byron publishes other remarkable artists such as BeBe Winans and CeCe Winans, Nichole Nordeman, Sandi Patty, Steven Curtis Chapman, Bart Millard, Matthew West, and Don Moen, as well as Bob Carlisle’s Butterfly Kisses.

Expanding the Christian Book Market

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 in mainstream retail, including books by the artists featured here on CBS—Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith.

At newly launched Worthy Publishing in 1984, Williamson saw the potential for such innovative titles, signing 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 hundreds of thousands of copies, pleasing such mainstream retailers of that time as B. Dalton, Walden, Walmart, and Target.

Innovative successes at Worthy include Byron’s creation of the Gold Medallion Award winning, easy-reading International Children’s Bible (ICB), the first translation specifically for children. The ICB was aggressively promoted on national radio by Dr. James C. Dobson. Over the years the ICB has sold over 15 million copies and is currently published by Harper-Collins Christian Publishers.

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 never imagined that in the years to come he would lead the publication of thousands of books, many of hitting bestseller lists such as the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly.

Word Publishing 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 Dallas, Texas. Williamson was later made President of the Word Publishing imprint.

In the early 1990s Williamson pressed Word into more aggressive merchandising with mainstream retailers like Walmart, Sams, Borders, and Target, soon experiencing dramatic growth.

Several of Word’s authors hit national bestseller lists. They include Billy Graham, Max Lucado, Charles R. Swindoll, Gary Smalley, Charles Colson, James C. Dobson, Pat Robertson, John MacArthur, and 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. Peretti’s first novel at Word, The Oath, was hot enough in 1995 to be featured on ‘the actual front page’ of the New York Times. Peretti’s next bestseller, The Visitation, was quickly spun-off into a theatrical motion picture.

Such high-profile exposures were witness to the strength and talents of Williamson’s publishing team and its ability to expand merchandising space with most leading general retailers.

Nelson Goes Public on the NYSE

In late 1992 Word was acquired by Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville, TN. Williamson moved to Nashville and was named President of the Thomas Nelson/Word Publishing Group (later merged 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 in the industry solely dedicated to mass market retail sales for Christian books, including Costco, Sams, Target, and Walmart, and with a growing list of bestselling authors, Nelson/Word rocketed from $123 to over $173 million. By fiscal 1999 Nelson/Word became the largest Christian trade book publisher in the world, ranking in the top ten among all New York-based publishers.

One revolutionary innovation came when Williamson challenged his sales team to present a creative merchandising idea to retailers—called the ‘store-within-a-store’ concept. Birmingham, AL-based Books-a-Million (BAM) embraced the idea and successfully employed this Christian book retailing concept in more than 200 locations—calling them The Testament Shoppes. This new section in each BAM store sold books from all Christian publishers in one dedicated space, creating a notable expansion for merchandising.

A 46-Million Bestseller Launched at Integrity

In fiscal 1999 Williamson resigned from Thomas Nelson, and by 2001 had recruited a remarkable new leadership team, founding Integrity Publishers as a division of Integrity Media, Inc., based in Mobile, AL. By Spring 2007 his 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 a cover design and title idea to Sarah; she agreed and began to craft the necessary 365 unique devotional readings.

Jesus Calling was released in the fall of 2004, becoming one of the best-selling trade books ever published—religious or secular—that was first published in the 21st century. Sales of this perpetual New York Times bestseller, now published by HarperCollins, including related products, have surpassed 46 million copies.

In addition, Integrity 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, and Newt Gingrich’s Rediscovering God in America.

Still other bestsellers came Byron’s way, including Where Jesus Walked by Ken Duncan, the photographer for Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, 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, which has sold over 2 million copies.

Entrepreneurial Success at Worthy

In fiscal 2007 Integrity was sold to what is now HarperCollins Christian, after which Williamson began to imagine a brand new initiative.

By 2009 Williamson relaunched the Worthy Publishing imprint with a gifted new team. They successfully adapted to the radical transition of book publishing in the new digital age. This innovative new trend involved downloadable eBooks, streamed audio books, and adjusting to the effect of Amazon’s discounted pricing strategies. Digital books triggered the closure of Borders and B. Dalton, as well as hundreds of independent Christian bookstores.

Worthy Publishing created a new children’s book imprint, WorthyKids, magnified by Williamson’s acquisition of Ideals Children’s Books from Guideposts Magazine. WorthyKids soon became a top-eight national children’s seasonal book publisher. One board book, The Story of Christmas, sold more than 1.8 million copies.

In 2015 Williamson partnered with the new Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. to produce an exclusive new, 36 title MotB imprint with first titles releasing at the museum’s Grand Opening in 2017.

Byron was especially 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, pastor of the influential Faith Central Baptist Bible Church in Los Angeles, NFL star Randall Cunningham, and Michael Vick’s biography, Finally Free, after Vick was released 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 several novels, including Dead Sea Rising, with Jerry Jenkins, whose Left Behind novels (Tyndale) had sold over 70 million copies. Williamson’s bestsellers included the million-copy Jeremiah Study Bible, John Hagee’s Four Blood Moons (17 weeks on the NYT list), and highly successful titles by Max Lucado, Mike Huckabee, Stephen Mansfield, Katherine Schwarzenegger, and as noted above, Grammy-winning Joel and Luke Smallbone of for King and Country.

Even as a young publisher, Worthy was known for its innovative management team, aggressive marketing and merchandising, allowing it to compete with such powerful houses as Penguin-Random, Simon & Schuster, 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 2017, an organization that includes such major imprints as Waterbrook and Multnomah (divisions of Penguin Random House), Tyndale House, HarperCollins Christian Publishers (Thomas Nelson/Zondervan), FaithWords/Worthy (imprints of Hachette USA), and most 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.