LONGWOOD, FL-When print-on-demand technology hit the market in the late 1990s, entrepreneurial publisher Tom Freiling saw a trend in the making. He founded Xulon Press in 2000 with a phone line and a typesetter, then got busy acquiring books. Since its inception the company has published more than 3,200 titles, becoming the fastest-growing publisher of Christian books in the world. Now owned by Salem Communications, Xulon Press just printed its one-millionth book, Out of the Depths: A Survivor's Story of the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis, written by David Harrell as told by Edgar Harrell. The book features a foreword by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, USMC, and has sold several thousand copies. That track record is a recurrent theme with Xulon titles and just one example of the company's explosive growth.
"One million books is an exciting milestone, but even more exciting is what the future holds for Xulon Press," said Tom Freiling, general manager. "We're experiencing explosive growth and it wouldn't surprise me if someday we're distributing a million books a year."
Xulon titles are printed via Lightning Source Inc., a subsidiary of Ingram Industries Inc. that stores books and other information electronically and delivers them "on demand" in either traditional printed format or as e-Books in response to orders from booksellers, librarians, and publishers. Lightning Source has printed over 40,000,000 books for over 4,500 publishers around the world.
Like so many stories surrounding World War II where fact is stranger than fiction, Out of the Depths is a terrifying firsthand account of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Navy cover-up that led to the bizarre court-martial and eventual exoneration of its captain. Marine survivor Edgar Harrell vividly describes the horrors of being plagued by sharks, hypothermia, severe dehydration, and salt-water hallucinations, and the crew's heart-wrenching struggle to survive the greatest catastrophe at sea in the history of the U.S. Navy.
Xulon Press, a part of Salem Communications Corporation, is the world's largest Christian publisher, with more than 3,900 titles published to date. Salem Communications is the countryÕs leading Christian communications company with interests in radio, Internet, and magazine publishing.
|
2007