Munro Magruder, Associate Publisher                                           

How long has New World Library been publishing books, and was there a specific title that launched the press?

New World Library has been in existence since 1977. The book that launched New World Library was Shakti Gawain's Creative Visualization, which has gone on to sell over six million copies worldwide. The event that took New World Library to the next level as a major publisher of personal growth and spirituality titles was the publication of Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success in 1995, which immediately became a #1 New York Times bestseller.

How did New World Library begin publishing books by spiritual teacher and author Eckhart Tolle?

Our Canadian New Age distributor told us about this fabulous self-published book that she was selling up there. Three months later New World Library published The Power of Now in hardcover after acquiring world rights from Namaste Publishing. With a lot of help from Oprah along the way, it sold nearly one million copies in hardcover before we released the trade paperback edition in Fall 2004. New World Library has since gone on to sell over two million copies of this edition and it has been on and off the New York Times bestseller list for nearly 100 weeks. Worldwide sales are over six million copies.

What role do you think blogs play for publishers and authors? What do you think readers expect from a publisher’s blog?

Blogs, along with social media, are a way for publishers and authors to connect with their readers and build community. While our blog, "New World Library Unshelved," has only been in existence for three months, we try to offer positive news and inspiring views from our employees and authors. We think our readers are looking for fresh insights into our publishing company and the books that we publish.

What changes or trends in the publishing industry do you think will most affect the readers of your books, and why?

The shift from print to digital books is undoubtedly the single biggest trend that will affect the readers of our books. While eBooks and digital downloads will probably represent around 7-8% of our sales in 2010, we think this number could reach 20-25% by the end of 2012. That means that a quarter of our readers could be reading our content on eReading devices that did not exist before 2007.

Can you tell us about a new release or soon to be released title that you are especially excited about? 

New World Library is very excited about two books on our Fall list: Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic's Quest, a new book from Michael Krasny, the host of KQED's (NPR) "Forum," and Hard Times Require Furious Dancing, a new collection of poems from Alice walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple. These are two books that could easily have ended up on a large New York publisher's list, but ended up with New World Library instead because both the authors and agents embraced our publishing philosophy and vision.