Jeff and I flew to the International Christian Retail Show in Denver on Sunday night. This is an annual event in different cities where all the Christian publishers come out and set up huge exhibit booths in this massive convention center, and Christian booksellers walk around and investigate the new books that are being released in the next six months.
It’s a time when everyone in the Christian publishing industry is all in one place at one time, and it’s normally one of the most fun times of the year for me. But this year was a little different. We found out about three days before ICRS that Multnomah, our beloved publishing company, is being sold. We got a call right beforehand, late at night, from Don Jacobson, the current owner of Multnomah, telling us that he would be announcing that he was selling the company. He said he couldn’t tell us who was buying Multnomah yet, but just wanted to let us know that the sale was underway. If everything goes as planned, the sale should be completed by July 31.
We have a lot of emotions attached to this. Multnomah has been our home for publishing for eight years. They’ve become our family, such family to us that it is almost unfathomable to think that - depending on what the new owner of Multnomah does with it — we may not be working with our Multnomah team again.
In spite of that, we had a good time with our Multnomah family. Although they themselves were dealing with uncertainty, as usual, they were the consummate professionals — the top of the heap, the standard of excellence in Christian publishing. But it was very, very sad saying goodbye on Tuesday, knowing that with every person I hugged , that that may be the last time I worked with them again. I pray that nothing changes; I pray that the team is allowed to stay intact. But that doesn’t seem likely. Sigh. Lots to think about and pray about as we learn more about who is buying Multnomah and what the ramifications will be.