William Carey Library Publishers
Equipping Workers to Build God's Kingdom
Our work at William Carey Library Publishers is not to just build an audience, but to engage communities around our brand and content. Our priority is to offer books that catalyze breakthroughs among the unreached—primarily Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu worlds. We also shed light on “frontiers” in mission thinking—like Environmental Missions or the confluence of Christian Mission and Economic Systems, subjects nobody else is tackling. We cover the Protestant church in Vietnam and tell the story of Jesus in Thai (translated into English). Ralph Winter started doing this in 1969: direct to the community on breaking topics. Over the last 45 years, WCL has published some 300 titles and sold over one million mission-related books. One quarter-million of those are through the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement program alone. Today, WCL carries on the vision of its founder to “publish, at reasonable cost, the best in current thinking on world mission.” In 2008 we published six new books; last year we published 18 new mission titles.
Reputation
Recent acquisitions and shifts in Christian publishing have left WCL and IVP as the primary destinations for mission author manuscripts. Many missionaries consider us the primary avenue through which to publish their work, and many new authors start with us.
This note came from an author recently:
“… it is the legitimating function of the book that makes me so interested in publishing with WCL... WCL is well-respected and you do serve a gatekeeper function in the mission community, at least the mission community as I have experienced it. Publishing with WCL will say to the … missionary, ‘you belong.’”
A further advocacy of WCL’s name and reputation is in the reviews printed in IBMR, Missiology and EMQ—at least one review from a WCL book every issue—sometimes two. We are mentioned in the readings, other reviews, and random references made throughout each issue and in the bibliographies added to each article by the authors.
We are the mission agency publisher of choice. We have done WEA books for 7 years, EMS books for 22 years and SEANET books for 11 years. This branding ensures our quality is maintained by all levels of stakeholders, and our topics are today’s breakthroughs.
- We are the primary publisher called on by Fuller Theological Seminary School of Intercultural Stuides proffessors for unpublished classic volumes by Alan Tippett and Donald McGavran.
- We apparently are the first choice for mission patriarchs.
Coming soon are:
- First biography of J. Christy Wilson
- Revision of Fouad Accad’s Building Bridges by his grandson Martin.
- An unpublished Roland Allen manuscript.
Customer Profile from Random Sample
82% buy our for personal reading, not for a class or assignment
81% are evangelical
64% male
36% female
63% have taken the Perspectives course
61% read Mission Frontiers
53% buy a book from WCL more than once a year
49% are financial supporters of missionaries
49% use Facebook daily
48% have known about WCL for 6-15 years
39% have been long-term missionaries
37% read from a book every day
22% have known about WCL for 5 years
3% buy 50-100 WCL books every year!
Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. -Deu 32:3 KJV
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