Strategic Partnership Forms Thomas Nelson’s Entry into Self-Publishing

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Oct. 13, 2009) – Thomas Nelson, the world’s leading Christian publisher, announced Tuesday it is partnering with the world’s leading self-publishing company, Author Solutions, Inc. (ASI), to launch WestBow Press—a Christian self-publishing imprint. The alliance will allow authors to benefit from the market leadership of Thomas Nelson, while taking advantage of ASI’s technology and services that make publishing easy, affordable, and available to anyone.

Long regarded as an industry innovator, Nelson’s creation of WestBow Press provides new and emerging authors the opportunity to publish with the global leader in Christian publishing. Thomas Nelson will monitor WestBow Press titles for the purpose of entering into a traditional publishing contracts for those that perform well.

“At Thomas Nelson, our purpose is to ‘Inspire the World,’” said Michael Hyatt, Thomas Nelson chief executive officer. “With the creation of WestBow Press, we will be able to help more authors realize their dream of being a published author while discovering more diamonds in the rough to add to our roster.”

Through this strategic partnership, ASI will manage WestBow Press on behalf of Thomas Nelson, and be responsible for selling and delivering a rich array of publishing, marketing, and book-selling services, unique to WestBow Press. Kevin Weiss, ASI president and chief executive officer, believes the WestBow Press partnership will serve as a blueprint for other similar alliances.

“We are very excited to join forces with Thomas Nelson in this partnership, We believe the tradition and extensive segment leadership that Thomas Nelson brings, along with ASI’s cutting-edge sales, marketing, and production capabilities will help to revolutionize the publishing industry,” said Weiss.

ASI, the parent company of industry-leading self-publishing imprints AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford Publishing, and Xlibris, brought to market more than 21,000 new titles in 2008. Since 1997, ASI imprints have published more than 120,000 titles by 85,000 authors worldwide.

To learn more about the publishing packages available through WestBow Press, visit www.westbowpress.com.

About WestBow Press
WestBow Press is a strategic self-publishing alliance of Thomas Nelson, the world’s premier Christian publisher, and Author Solutions, Inc. (ASI)—the world leader in the fastest-growing segment of publishing. Through this partnership, authors benefit from the rich publishing heritage of Thomas Nelson and the speed-to-market advantages of the ASI self-publishing model. Titles published through WestBow Press will be evaluated for sales potential and considered for publication under the Thomas Nelson imprint. For more information, visit www.westbowpress.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Corporate Releases, Press Release, Westbow Press. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.