Cross Country Publishing Merger Ends Up Meeting in the Middle
It was, geographically speaking, the most extreme merger in Christian publishing. Rose Publishing, maker of charts and pamphlets and teaching videos and anchored deep in the heart of Southern California was purchased by Hendrickson Publishing whose home base is New England. The distance was (and is) over 3,000 miles.
Now, four years later, the combined Henrickson Publishing Group is being acquired by Tyndale, who are located in the Chicago suburbs. It’s as though they’re meeting in the middle, so to speak.
A press release from the EPCA news site Rush to Press stated that, “The Hendrickson Publishing Group, including its Rose Publishing imprints, will continue to operate autonomously from their current locations but will work under a united mission with Tyndale…”
Regular readers here will note that each of the three companies has a flavour all their own. Hendrickson’s forté has been its academic division and acquisition and revival of classic titles which might be otherwise out of print. Rose is known for its multi-media approach to Christian education and being a progressive leader in introducing books using visual teaching including photos and infographics. Tyndale’s mainstay has been its fiction and NLT product lines.
The Hendrickson family is also the force behind ChristianBook.com.
In 2013, Tyndale also took over the manufacturing, warehousing, marketing, sales, and fulfillment for NavPress, but that company remains a separate entity.
In Canada, Tyndale is represented by Word Alive only, but Hendrickson and Rose have been longtime vendors to Parasource. We haven’t heard if Canadian distribution will be impacted.
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Christian Book Shop Talk 
Did not know Hendrickson was behind Christianbook.com. Not happy to hear that. Hate the thought of fueling that ship every time I buy Hendrickson.
Different brothers but yes, same family, both located in NE Boston, MA. We covered that in 2017 when we mentioned the first merger, and in March, 2019 we wrote that CBD is “related to Hendrickson Publisher, although ownership of [the]company has also flown under the radar for decades.” So not exactly news.
CBD (or as they prefer now, ChristianBook.com) has been a thorn in the flesh for booksellers for decades, long before the internet. My own business worked closely with the bookstores at Tyndale College and Seminary (for eight years) and Eastern Pentecostal (for five years) and they had students who would drive to Boston for the annual warehouse sales. They discount textbooks and reference works so deeply that on some things, it’s not even worth bothering. I can’t ethically sell a multi-volume set to an online-enabled customer for $949 knowing they can order it from ChristianBook for $249.(Which is where sometimes I end up getting it when we agree to meet in the middle. And their $249 is actually $433 CDN.)
On the other hand, when he was at Tyndale College, Andrew Bronson (now with IVP in Chicago) challenged me to think about it differently. His store had a CBD account at the time and used them as wholesale supplier. (Their name does say “Distributors,” or at least it did.) I was rather surprised, but took his advice to heart and they are now one of a handful of bargain book sources we use. If you can’t beat ’em (and you can’t), join ’em.