Episode 63: Nurturing Christian Publishers at ECPA with Jeff Crosby

Jeff Crosby is the president and CEO of ECPA, the trade association of Christian publishers and has worked in bookselling and publishing roles for more than four decades. He is also an author of several books, including World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading (Paraclete Press, 2025), The Language of the Soul: Meeting God in the Longings of Our Hearts (Broadleaf, 2023) and Days of Grace Through the Year (IVP, 2007).

His next book, titled The Spirit in the Sky: The Power of Music in Our Search for Graceland, will be published in September by Bloomsbury. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and trade journals, including CRUX, Conversations Journal, Living Lutheran, Publishers Weekly, and CRA Today.

Jeff joined us on the Booksmarts Podcast to discuss the history and mission of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA), as well as their three annual publishing events they host to bring Christian publishers, leaders, and speakers together. He also discusses the emerging challenges and opportunities facing Christian publishing—from AI and market consolidation to global growth in regions like Brazil.

To learn more about ECPA, visit their website.

Digital Transcript

Joshua Tallent
So this month on the book smarts podcast, I’m chatting with Jeff Crosby, who is the president of ECPA, one of the many, well, not many. It’s only a couple of us, organizations in the publishing industry, trade organizations. Jeff, thanks for joining me today on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Joshua, I appreciate it. Jeff and I have known each other for a while. You used to be at IVP, if I remember correctly, before you came to ECPA. So you’ve been in book publishing for a long time. Just yourself, right?

Jeff Crosby
Yeah, a long time. 43 years. September will mark the 44th year. And yeah, the majority of my time has not been with ECPA as an organization. I was a beneficiary of the work of ECPA as a long term publisher called IBP, IBP academic, and, yeah, it was really there. And also as a bookseller, I owned a bookstore for 13 years near Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, we just had a great football showing this year. So more people know about Bloomington, but had a bookstore there for 13 years. And I was also a beneficiary of ECPA, because in those days, it hosted trade shows, like regional trade shows. So my experience with ECPA goes back to 83 but over the last five years as its president, so yeah, serving member publishers,

Joshua Tallent
That’s great, yeah. And it’s ECPA is kind of unique among I mean, we have a couple of different trade organizations in the publishing, book publishing world that ECPA serves a Christian market. Why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit about ECPA and the mission that you have and and the approach that you take to representing publishers in the industry?

Jeff Crosby
Yeah, the the history goes back to October of 1974 so we recently celebrated a 50th anniversary, and had a lot of fun doing that, but the 22 publishers who came together in Denver in October of 74 they what animated their decision to pursue a trade association was the belief that while there was a space in those days, and had been since the 1950s for Christian bookseller, the Christian book selling community there wasn’t for publishing by and large and and they felt that we would be we publishers would be better off together than working in isolation or only in support of what was the dominant channel At that time, which was Christian brick and mortar retail, and so they came together, and a lot of what they did in those early years, we still do. They put on events, and we still do and they did research projects and and communicated through newsletters, and did consulting, you know, work for newer and emerging publishers, which is one of the joys of my work at ECPA, is to take a newer or a smaller publisher and to do what I can to pour into them and then see them grow and move from what we call a small Press, which is less than 1 million in sales to a voting member, which the majority of our membership is. So that is a million all the way up to to one of the one or two of the big five publishers, Harper Collins and Penguin Random House, have Christian imprints that are a part of ECPA, so we’re still doing a lot of that. Joshua, as you know, we put on a number of events for different strata of the industry staff. We do research, we do legal advocacy through work with an affiliate called the Flagler Law Group. Do a lot of training, a lot of mentoring emerging leaders, programs where, you know, very joyfully we’re seeing as we invest in a curriculum and mentoring relationships with new and emerging leaders, some of those are moving up into our leadership summit and our C suite realm, and it’s just very gratifying to see that happening. We also celebrate and the books that and other resources that our members publish. We have awards for nonfiction, we have awards for fiction, and then we have what we call sales Achievement Awards. You. Once you’re past, I believe it’s 100,000 copies, you you kind of have a have, you know, the ability to to promote, you know, land landmark, sales achievements. And it’s a part of helping our member publishers with discoverability of their of their titles, which is a huge problem, as we’ve lost so many bookstores in the last 20 years, discoverability is more challenging in certain ways. So that’s part of what we do there is there are a couple of other similar associations that we partner with, a Catholic trade association and a Protestant church owned Publishing Association. What? What makes us unique is they typically are not for profit, and we’re a blend of not for profit and for profit publishers. But we do a lot of similar things and and we enjoy partnering together and in certain projects, yeah, the three of us, yeah,

Joshua Tallent
that’s great. Let’s talk a little little bit about the the events that you put on. Because unlike a lot of other organizations, you put on three different events every year, which is a big investment of time and resources on behalf of your staff. So why don’t you talk us through the three different events, the target audience of those events, and what kind of things you like to bring to the table when you’re when you’re planning those events out for your publishers.

Jeff Crosby
Yeah, they’re, they’re some of the heaviest loads that I lift. I curate the content for two of the three entirely, and then for one, I’m sort of serve as a coach for the content development and it is a big investment. It’s also a big risk when you’re working with hotels and and audio visual companies and things like that. But we really do believe it’s a it’s a key part of our mission, because out of those, those three big events that you mentioned, the networking with industry affiliates like Firebrand technology, but also with each other, publisher to publisher. I’ve often had people say that, if they come from outside of the Christian publishing arena, I’m surprised by the camaraderie and how much intelligence you all are willing to share with each other because you’re competitors, and I do think that’s been a hallmark since the early days. The three events you mentioned, I’ll start with the the largest in terms of numeric is is called ECPA publishing University. It was created in 2004 and it was really designed to be kind of a university, like curriculum for practitioners in certain disciplines, primarily, although not always, editorial, marketing, design, production, and then there’s always kind of outliers, like sales we do from time to time, rights and Sub licensing we do from time to time, legal we do from time to time, but that tends to be the largest around 250 publishers. It tends to be people who are newer to their job or newer to the industry, oftentimes early career to mid career, but some executives like me and my time at IVP, I often attended or even, you know, taught classes. And so it’s really designed to invest in people kind of honing the craft of a particular discipline. The smallest is C suite symposium. You’ve been to that as well. It’s CEOs, CFOs and CEOs primarily. Or if it’s a smaller press, the title may be different, but they have that function, and it’s much more intimate. There’s that’s probably where vendors notice the collaboration, the sharing of intelligence, oftentimes, a bigger publisher will, you know, will sit with a smaller publisher and and try to, you know, help them out. They’re often sought out and and they seem to be quite willing to share out of their expertise and the larger size that they have this fall, we have James daunt, the CEO of Barnes and Noble, during our closing session. So that’s the kind of content you would have there, where as pub you we think of it as created for the industry by the industry. So people in publishing roles are teaching those disciplines of editorial and marketing, sales and and design and so forth. With C suite, it tends to be more plenary or more keynote. Sometimes there are people from the industry, but more often than not, it’s people that I’ve gotten to know and and know the intelligence, the creativity, the challenge that they’ll bring us. Uh This fall, in addition to James Donna consultant named Tom Clegg, who just does some incredible work on change management, he’s going to do a two part series. Then we have publisher from Egypt coming in to talk about the special challenges of publishing in the MENA region, the Middle East and Northern Africa and places like that. The third event is the second largest. It’s generally about 180 people. It’s called Leadership Summit, and it’s really just what it sounds like. It’s leaders of all levels of the organization coming together for typically, again, a plenary or a keynote kind of format. Though, sometimes we mix it up and have breakout sessions if something seems to be, you know, really needs to be addressed, but not from the main stage. Early on, AI was one of those topics where I thought a lot of people, when I was trying to address that early on, I thought a lot of people are going to tune this out. They’re not sure what to make of it. But then fairly quickly, it moved from a breakout session to a main stage. But we often again, have people from inside the organization or inside the industry, usually on panels. So there will be a panel this spring, in April, on on artificial intelligence, a panel we’re calling the future the industry, but with a special of special emphasis on on AI, we’ve had panels on accessibility issues, panels on audio books and things like that. So, so that’s kind of the the middle in terms of size, but in terms of the you know what people talk about when they talk about ECPA, probably Leadership Summit is the most commonly referred to, because people are are coming from all levels of the organization. And then we also do what we call ECPA focused webinars, typically in the summer, sometimes in December, we will have industry vendors sometimes or outside folks, inside folks. We address a lot of different topics. It tends to be more immediate, an immediate need that has arisen. We don’t want to wait for one of our planned events. And then I think, as you may have mentioned, we also do some things in Europe, rights and sub licensing in Europe and in Brazil, in Frankfurt, in London, those are all much, much smaller, and where we’re kind of tagging on to the work of another Association?

Joshua Tallent
Yeah, I think something I have said for many years, even even before your tenure, but I especially during your tenure, is ECPA does a great job of picking speakers, finding the right people to bring in and have a conversation. You mentioned the gentleman who’s going to talk about change management at the C suite Summit. That’s exciting, right? That’s that, to me, I’ve been introduced to so many interesting ideas, some stretching, some more straight at home, kind of ideas. But it’s, it’s so great to see. And I’m going to take a little sidebar from our main conversation here and just kind of ask you, how do you do it? How do you find these people? I’m assuming it’s like looking at the list of books that are coming out and maybe picking some authors, but, but that’s not always the case. So how do you, how do you think through it as you’re as you’re considering,

Jeff Crosby
that’s a great question. And, you know, I think it is really rooted in just being in this industry for such a long, long time. I mean, really, except for a short period of time as a journalist, or, you know, shortly after I graduated from undergraduate school, this is what I’ve known. This is what I’ve done. It’s what animates. You know, who I am, and you know, I’m in the middle of a three week class at my at a church that I attend. You know, I’m doing a, doing a three week class on the spiritual discipline of reading and and I’ve just, you know, as I put together this, this class, I’ve been reminded of the, the formational impact, I mean, at a very, deep level of books on my life, and just wanting to try to transfer that I’ve got about 50 students in the room, and try to transfer that to them. I think you’re right. A lot of it comes out of what I’m reading. An example of that would be a C suite speaker named Joel Miller just done a remarkable book that Prometheus publishers, not a Christian publisher, but a profound book called The ideal machine, how books impacted our world and shape our future. It goes all the way back to antiquity, to books on wax, books on papyrus, things like that, and brings us all the way. You know, to the to the current day. Joel is a fascinating person, and so I read a book. I get to know him, I strike up a friendship and invite another example of that is a woman who will open Leadership Summit. Her name is Dr Emily Smith from Duke University. She’s an epidemiologist of all things. But she did a book for Zondervan called The Science of the Good Samaritan. It’s on how we can how, how we can be neighbors to one another. And I read the book profoundly moved. And I just thought, you know, we have never needed this message more, in my opinion, than we do right now. And so where do I slot this lady? How do I get to know her? And I just wrote to her, I’m kind of, I guess you would say I am. I’m not easily intimidated in reaching out and connecting with people, which some folks who know me well kind of find that surprising. But I am more of a behind the scenes guy, and so I can make rather than an on stage, and I can make those connections in a one, one on one, one on two. And when I meet someone who has a message that I believe our community and sometimes our world needs to hear, because I believe if I can impact ECPA membership, it will fill it will flow from there. It will filter out from there. It’s if they, if they do the kind of work that I believe they will do, and Emily’s case, and Joel’s case, it, it will be talked about in lots and lots of other circles. So, so that’s how I do it. A lot of it is reading. A lot of it is, you know, trying to follow Malcolm godwell’s, you know, tipping point idea of being a networker and a connector. And I’ve always had a self conception of being a bridge builder. And I think of this work as it’s building bridges to vendors like Firebrand, building bridges to publishers and between publishers, building bridges with authors, speakers and and then, you know, the larger publishing world being a part of boards and the association, kind of communities and things that that This has opened up. So that’s a start, you know, and sometimes epiphanies drop in my lap, and someone tells me, Hey, you got to meet this person. And they, they open the door, and then I just walk through it and see what happens. That’s kind of what happened with the publisher in Egypt. I didn’t know them, but someone opened a door, and then we, we hit it off, and now they’ll be with us. That’s great.

Joshua Tallent
Yeah, I always love your events. I think they’re, they’re very valuable as as ways of understanding the industry, understanding kind of where Christian publishing is heading, and also as as ways of learning, you know, teaching, teaching me as an individual, even, you know, gaining. I gain every single time I go, I gain some other insight into into my faith and things, that things are valuable to me. So I’m glad that you I’m glad that you guys take the effort to to put those together, and you do such a great job. Thank you. Just as a final question here, I’m going to throw one at you that I didn’t give you before, but I’m curious, what do you think would be, probably, just off the cuff, the biggest challenge, or, I’ll give you the opportunity, the biggest opportunity for Christian publishing in the next couple of years. What do you think is, is the thing that is either going to challenge the most or that’s the biggest opportunity? And maybe there’s some connection.

Jeff Crosby
I think there is some connection. I think there is, there’s some great opportunities that AI could afford us in terms of efficiencies, in terms of creativity, in terms of messaging and reach reaching readers. But you know, there are, I mean, I’m an author of myself, and I, you know, through that experience, I’m mindful of some of the, some of the shadow sides of that so I think it is, it’s a challenge. It’s also an opportunity. I I’m trying to encourage our publishing members to not be fearful and not not shy away from engagement, to be intelligent and to really seek out trusted voices and all of that. So. So that would certainly be one, I think, another great challenge for our industry, Christian publishing. But even more broadly, is, you know, the market share dominance of a single entity. And if I were, if I were still a publisher, as I was for all those years, you know, I would be doing everything I could to to find new ways of reaching readers, because I just think we. We, we do? We do well to try to mitigate that risk and to try to to work directly in increasing ways, working directly with the with the end reader, have have that relationship. You know, 20 years ago, talking about one to one marketing, but I’m thinking, you know more broadly, how to, how do we cultivate a relationship with the end user of our products and serve them and and, you know, while also serving the big the big player, the big players plural. So those are a couple of things that come to mind, that all kinds of things happening with the explosion, specifically for Christian publishing. The explosion of the church in in places like Brazil, the Global South, more more broadly, but Brazil in particular, it’s just fascinating. If you watch what’s happening with the church there and and Christian publishing, the publishers are serving the Brazilian market, are doing very well, and those who are partnering with indigenous Portuguese publishers are doing very well. So I think there’s a lot that could be said about global the global context. That would be very encouraging if I were still in a publisher’s role. That’s great question.

Joshua Tallent
Yeah, well, thanks for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate your time. Why don’t we tell people where they can follow the work that ECPA is doing and maybe follow you personally as well?

Jeff Crosby
Yeah, the ECPA. You can find us@ecpa.org you know, pretty easy to navigate tabs once you’re there, of the seven or eight foci of our work, you can easily find that and for me and my writing, it’s Jeffrey crosby.net j, F, F, R, E, Y. Crosby.net has the the most recent books, one that’s forthcoming, that you can find there

Joshua Tallent
That’s great. Well, thanks for joining us for the BookSmarts podcast this month. That’s it for this episode. If you like what you’ve heard, you can leave a review or rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast. You can also share the podcast with your colleagues. If you have topic suggestions or feedback about the show, you can email me at joshua@firebrandtech.com thanks for joining me and getting smarter about your books.