Zondervan

To be the leading Christian communications company meeting the needs of people with resources that glorify Jesus Christ and promote biblical principles. Zondervan is a leading international Christian communications company, producing bestselling and awardwinning Bibles, books, children's products, software, audio, video, multimedia, and a broad line of gift products. Zondervan publishes the New Testament portion of the International Bible Society's New International Version ( NIV ) of the Bible. Rolling Stone magazine causes a media firestorm after refusing a Zondervan ad. Zondervan Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers, is one of the largest Christian publishing companies in the world. Its products range from the top selling New International Version of the Bible , to inspirational fiction, self-help, reference, biography, history, and textbooks, to gift products and a wide range of multimedia products. Since becoming a subsidiary of HarperCollins in 1988, Zondervan has concentrated its energies on traditional religious publishing, while extending its reach beyond the evangelical market with such bestsellers as Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life and the Veggie Tales books for children. Having divested itself of a bookstore chain and a music company, Zondervan has found its niche as the nation's leading Bible publisher and continues to develop products for its evolving Christian market. Zondervan was created in 1931 by brothers Pat and Bernard Zondervan, in their mother's Grandville, Michigan farmhouse as a religious bookselling company. In 1932 the brothers opened their first bookstore in neighboring Grand Rapids. The following year saw the first two books published under the Zondervan imprint. The company's home base of western Michigan was particularly religious and conservative, a perfect locale for such a business. Grand Rapids, known as the city with the most churches per capita in the United States, was home to a number of seminaries and church-affiliated colleges, and was the headquarters of the Reformed Church in America, the Dutch Protestant sect founded on the principles of John Calvin. From the 1930s through the 1950s the company expanded. In 1959 Zondervan bought a religious music company, Singspiration. The following year the company took over publication of Halley's Bible Handbook from a private firm, eventually selling over four million copies of the title. Over the years Zondervan's bookstore operation had expanded to a number of locations and in the early 1960s the first outlet was opened in a shopping mall. The success of this store led the company to open in other malls, eventually placing all new outlets in such locations. In 1966 Zondervan purchased the Bible department from the larger Harper & Row publishing company, which brought the company a number of specialized Bibles and related textbooks, including the popular Harper Study Bible. During the same year cofounder Bernie Zondervan died, but brother Pat continued to lead the company. Zondervan's publishing efforts included a somewhat broad range of material, not always books with a strictly conservative, religious bent. Titles such as The Act of Marriage by Tim and Beverly LaHaye from 1959 and Sexual Happiness in Marriage by Herbert Miles from 1967 were published alongside more typical fare such as biographies of missionaries, discussions of theological issues, Bible encyclopedias and concordances, and tracts on the evils of tobacco or communism. Zondervan occasionally published religious titles with mass appeal, such as Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth from 1970, which eventually sold some ten million copies. The following year, 1971, Zondervan made an investment in the financially troubled International Bible Society's translation of the New International Version of the Bible , a move that would later repay itself many times over. The New Testament of the New International Version was published in 1973,