How Seeker Spirituality Is Shaping The World Of Publishing
Harper's new line of books is tailored toward spiritual explorers of all sorts.
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- Antonia Blumberg Associate Religion Editor, The Huffington Post
For some, the journey of spiritual
self-discovery begins by picking up a book -- and there couldn’t be a better
time to do so.
This fall, HarperOne, the San
Francisco-based imprint of HarperCollins, launched HarperElixir, a line of
books specifically targeting people who seek the answers to life’s big
questions.
“The audience is the modern seeker…
people who are spiritual and magical and passionate and curious and they want
to answer the call to go deeper,” said Claudia Boutote, senior vice president
and publisher of HarperElixir.
Boutote and senior editor Libby
Edelson kicked off the line with The Toltec Art of Life and Death by
Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The New York Times bestseller The Four
Agreements. They also published books by psychologist Carol S. Pearson and
relationship expert Arielle Ford, as well as two adult coloring books by Lydia
Hess.
Just three months in, Boutote said
the new line captures the zeitgeist of American spirituality while building on
the legacy that authors like Ruiz have nurtured over the last few decades.
“A couple of years ago, [HarperOne]
started to see that all of a sudden there was a new burgeoning of seekers that
was bubbling up. … We felt we’d be able to contribute to that contemporary
conversation,” said Boutote, who has worked at HarperOne for 11 years.
It’s clear the audience for books
on spirituality will continue to grow. Religious “nones,” or people who are
religiously unaffiliated but seek spirituality and transformation in nontraditional
places, make up the second-largest and fastest-growing
spiritual category in the United States. And HarperOne’s backlist of
over 400 older books in the "mind, body, spirit" category continue to
sell year after year, Boutote said.
HarperElixir joins the ranks of
publishing houses like Hay House and Harmony Books that have made the
"mind, body, spirit" movement a marketable category unto itself.
HarperOne has been churning out works by spirituality-focused authors like
Deepak Chopra, Ram Das and Marianne Williamson for decades.
But HarperElixir is even more
specialized, specifically targeting spiritual seekers. The line occupies
the territory “where hippie meets hipster,” Boutote said, drawing in a new
generation while staying true to older readers who were raised on the likes of
Chopra and Das and who are “still seeking, just at a different stage of life.”
Many of the line’s upcoming authors
for 2016 have yet to become household names. Kim Krans, illustrator
of The Wild Unknown tarot cards, and Guru Jagat, a Kundalini yoga teacher
recently featured in Los Angeles Magazine and pictured below, will have titles
out with HarperElixir in the upcoming year. For Boutote, any one of these new
authors could be the spiritual powerhouses of tomorrow.
“When wisdom is very pure and
authentic, it’s lasting, and it really does stand the test of time,” Boutote
told HuffPost. “Those are the authors we are looking to publish here -- authors
who will have something to publish for today, but what they say will be
relevant for years to come.”
Seeker spirituality is broad and
can include many different practices and worldviews, which is why books
published under HarperElixir will cover everything from yoga and happiness
coaching to astrology and healing crystals. What unites the titles, Boutote
said, is that they all strive to help people trying to answer questions
like “Where am I going? What happens when I die? How can I connect with
the divine?”
“We’re asking these big questions
and hoping to help answer them for people,” she said.
Also on HuffPost:
26 Books Every 'Spiritual But Not Religious' Seeker Should
Read
MORE:
Seekers,
Spirituality, Harpercollins, Harperone, Harperelixir, Religious Nones, Nones, Don Miguel Ruiz, Guru Jagat, Astrology, Tarot
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