Tag Archives: book publishing; christian book publishers

‘God’s ad-man’ overcomes failure and depression to help many Christian groups

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FAITH NEWS SERVICE – Is the advertising industry a tough place for a Christian to work?

Not for a sixteen-year-old Tom Glynn who joined a Sydney advertising agency and later worked for top advertising agencies in Sydney, Singapore and London.

Tom tells his extraordinary life story in his biography, “God’s Ad-Man” released in August 2021.

The son of an illegal SP bookmaker and a failure at school, Tom became a Christian in his late teens. He believed the principles of advertising could be applied to Christian organizations to improve their communications and fundraising.

In 1974 he started Tom Glynn Advertising with two clients, Anglican Home Mission Society (now Anglicare) and Scripture Union.

“We also attracted commercial clients to keep up to date and provide income,” Glynn said.

Despite his success and the ground-breaking work, he did to make

Christian ministry more visible and effective, Glynn had his own battles to fight.

“During this time, I was suffering from clinical depression which was only diagnosed years later when I was thinking of committing suicide. I wrongly believed it was a mid-life crisis.”

God’s Ad-Man is a story of success and failure, commitment and hope, in business as well as personal life. It also paints a picture of how Christian organizations were able to begin telling their stories in effective, relatable ways.

Tom published Which Christian Guides (Mission, College and School) for fifteen years.

“As well as understanding something of the challenges of the era, a reader will be encouraged to walk their own journey of fulfillment, courage and commitment, in the life God has called them to,” Glynn concluded.

God’s Ad-Man is available worldwide and from Koorong.

Ark House launches partner publishing

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FAITH NEWSWIRE – Global Christian book publisher Ark House Press has launched a new partner publishing program.

The publisher, which specializes in working with a wide range of Christian authors, has made the announcement in light of the changes taking place in the retail marketplace.

Matt Danswan, the CEO of Initiate Media, the parent company of Ark House, said, “As we continue to see a breakdown in both the Christian retail and general bookseller marketplace, this is putting a lot of strain on publishers.

“With channels closing, getting physical books in front of readers is tougher than ever. Having said that, the opportunities have never been greater in that an author now has global exposure and distribution as people buy their books online. But at the same time, the net result is that it is a challenge to sell the same number of units in the new digital marketplace.”

Ark House’s co-publishing model works with authors who have solid content, but just don’t have the runs on the board in terms of previous sales, or they do not have a strong social media presence with which to promote their title to.

Partner publishing allows the author all of the benefits that a published author gets, but because they pay a small fee, they keep the rights to their title.

“Partner publishing, or as we call it, co-publishing, is an exciting new model for authors,” explains Matt. “It’s a hybrid of being with a credible traditional publisher, while at the same time keeping your rights and not having to go down the path of self publishing, which generally sees books published at a fairly low quality, de-valuing the author’s reputation and credibility.

“We are still committed to being a boutique publishing house, underwriting the publishing of authors who have the ability to sell a high number of units, but we simply cannot ignore the large volumes of inquiries from amazing authors who have huge talent, but just need someone to back them as they make their start.”

For more information visit www.arkhousepress.com.