Harper SF, Walden Partner in New Movie Tie-Ins

by Lori Smith, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 5/10/2006

Harper San Francisco will partner with Walden Media (producers of The Chronicles of Narnia and Holes) to publish two books related to the movie Amazing Grace, which explores the life of British abolitionist William Wilberforce. The movie opens in April 2007, 200 years after passage of the abolition bill Wilberforce sponsored.

The first book will be a biography of Wilberforce, also called Amazing Grace, written by Eric Metaxas (Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God). The second title, inspired by Walden's educational tie-ins to the film, will be an action guide on human trafficking called Not For Sale, written by David Batstone, editor of Sojourners magazine. HSF v-p and deputy publisher Mark Tauber calls the $31 billion trafficking industry "essentially the modern-day slavery," and said that Not For Sale "profiles some of the heroes of today's human trafficking interference, along with some of the victims, and talks about what you can do." Walden will share in the royalties for the Amazing Grace biography, but not those of Not For Sale.

Tauber expects the books will draw a large audience in part because of the religious foundation for Wilberforce's work. "William Wilberforce, aside from being a member of Parliament and a great activist, is a hero to evangelical Christians around the world, especially in the U.S.," Tauber said. "He did what he did because of his personal relationship with God."

Harper SF and Walden first partnered around the release of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe last year. While Walden worked mostly with HarperCollins Children's, publisher of the Narnia titles, HSF produced the official making-of-the-movie book, (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Official Illustrated Movie Companion). That led the two companies to explore other possibilities for working together.

Walden develops educational material along with most of its films—in this case, curriculum for history teachers—marketing it through educational conferences, state fairs and music festivals. Co-founder and president Michael Flaherty told RBL they hope to have some victims of human trafficking at the promotional events, to tell their own stories. Said Flaherty, "We always work very closely with the publisher, because we really want that experience to extend beyond those two hours in the movie theatre."