Doubleday Religion is Dead..but Image is Back!

March 4, 2011 by Amy Welborn

I think it’s pretty exciting news that the venerable IMAGE imprint is returning. What’s going on at Doubleday:

The Crown Publishing Group has reorganized its religious publishing program, moving all of its Catholic books under the Image Books imprint and in the process doing away with the Doubleday Religion imprint. Under the reorganization, announced by Michael Palgon, senior v-p and deputy publisher of Crown, all Catholic-interest titles regardless of format will be overseen by Trace Murphy, editor-in-chief of Image. Murphy will now report to Steve Cobb, who adds the title of president and publisher of Image Books to his duties overseeing Waterbrook Multnomah, which is based in Colorado Springs.

While Image editorial, production and art will remain in New York, marketing, publicity, and sales administration will move to Colorado under the direction of Carie Freimuth, v-p, association publisher for Waterbrook Multnomah and Image. In making the announcement, Palgon noted “our Catholic-interest authors and books will benefit greatly from the keen strategic focus and innovative practices that Steve, Carie, and their team have developed, including Web-based direct-to-consumer and direct-to-church programs that will be adapted for the Catholic market.”

Image, along with Sheed & Ward, was Catholic trade publishing in the US until the 70′s. How many old Image paperbacks do you have stuck in your shelves? This is a great move – particularly bringing Image into relationship with Waterbrook Multnomah for the marketing aspect – Waterbrook, which has developed into a really fine, quality imprint over the past few years.

(Meanwhile…don’t forget to check out Korrectiv for your burgeoning Catholic small-press needs)

(Power of the Cross update: Smashwords has certainly grown in popularity since the first time I used it. I uploaded the book this morning and it was #536 in the publishing queue. Now it’s #125. We’ll get there. Smashwords edition will be able to be read on the Nook, as well as IBooks, I think. The Kindle edition is still “publishing.” Maybe before next Wednesday? Meanwhile, I have learned that the POC interviews will be posted on KVSS’ Kris McGregor’s blog Discerning Hearts. So look for it there, when you look for it.

Of course the pdf is available here. I put up a couple more sets of used books as well: here, here and here.

Update 3/5 Kindle version is here.

I am at least a week away from publishing the print version (waiting for cover) but there are a couple of reasonably priced used/new editions available through other sellers here.

The interviews Mike made about the book with Kris McGregor of KVSS are all linked here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

6 Responses

on March 4, 2011 at 3:30 pm Kamilla

Amy,

What about Waterbrook’s fiction line? I took a quick peek and it looks like it is primarily aimed at the evangelical woman who wantsa baptized version of Harlequin romance novels.

Kamilla
on March 4, 2011 at 5:10 pm Amy Welborn

Kamilla:

What about it? A big publisher like Crown/Doubleday (or WHATEVER it is) has several – a couple dozen, perhaps – imprints, all with different editorial missions. Image will be w/Waterbrook Multnomah in the context of marketing, not editorial content, an area at which CBA publishers are far better than most Catholic publishers. The whole question of 1) What “Catholic” books Catholics will pay to read and 2) How to tell them about them has been fraught for years. This is a good step toward figuring that out.
on March 4, 2011 at 11:26 pm KC

Thanks for this news. I don’t know where else I could have found it. Someday there may be as many Catholic readers as there are authors. :)
on March 5, 2011 at 4:11 pm Claudia Satori

And someday there may be Catholics who can discern what is faithful to the Magisterium and what is “touchy feely” pablum.

meoooow, bookseller in rotten working Saturday mood with people who want to argue that Catholics aren’t Christians
on March 5, 2011 at 5:31 pm Jacqueline Y.

I became intersted in the Catholic faith at the tail end of the Golden Age of Image Books, when the tag line was “…making the world’s best Catholic literature available to all…”. Those little paperbacks were wonderful, and fit a college student’s budget.

No sooner did I become a Catholic (1967/1968) than the Silly Season gathered momentum, and Image Books could no longer necessarily be trusted. One of the worst was a book on Jesus by A.N. Wilson.

I really hope that the new incarnation of IB at Doubleday approaches the quality and good influence of the original.
on March 7, 2011 at 12:24 pm Michael Tinkler

LOL – I can’t think how many IMAGE books I have, more than half of them bought used!