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If history repeats itself, then Dan Balow of Tyndale House Publishers is about to breathe a sigh of relief.

As marketing director for Tyndale, Balow has used $500,000 of his company's advertising budget to promote The Mark, the eighth installment in the apocalyptic Left Behind series, which hits the shelves this month.

If The Mark matches the success of its predecessor, The Indwelling, the new book could become number one on The New York Times bestsellers list in a matter of weeks.

For Balow, that would mean money well spent. His entire advertising campaign has been a monumental step for Tyndale, the evangelical publishing house based in Carol Stream, Illinois.

The $3.5 million that the company will spend this year for promotions includes advertisements with USA Today, ABC Radio Network, and The Rush Limbaugh Show.

Lynn Garrett, Publishers Weekly's religion books editor, predicts Tyndale's latest efforts will pay off. To date the company has sold over 23 million copies of Left Behind items, which include audio books and a children's series.

Sales for the Left Behind books have continued to climb since the series first appeared five years ago. What started with Left Behind, the original book about non-Christians left on earth after true believers are raptured to heaven, has evolved into a projected series of 12 novels written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

The Mark describes the resurrection of the Antichrist and features characters who must make a dramatic choice: either wear a bodily mark signifying loyalty to the resurrected leader or suffer persecution.

The attention these action-packed page-turners have garnered from general retailers has intensified Tyndale's momentum to keep the books coming.

Tyndale has changed the way it does business. Its advertisements are more aggressive and catchy, bearing dark colors and vivid illustrations of a world turned upside down in the Revelation-based tales.

"They've done a very savvy job promoting these books," says Garrett, who believes Tyndale has paved the way for other Christian books to enter the general market more easily.

Although Frank Peretti's spiritual-warfare novels and Janette Oke's spiritually-themed romance novels have sold millions in past years, Christian publishing still "used to be its own subculture," Garrett says. "That's not the case anymore."

Aside from transforming the world of Christian publishing, Tyndale has also changed as a company.

Last year the company added an extra 25,000 square feet of office space to its main building and constructed a new 60,000 square-foot storage warehouse especially for the Left Behind books. Plans to purchase 56 acres of nearby land for more warehouse space also are in the works.

Staff size has increased during the last two years (from 200 to now almost 350), and so have the bonus checks. Each full-time employee received a $2,000 midyear bonus last year, with another larger bonus at the year's end.

"The series has been successful far beyond our expectations," says Mark Taylor, Tyndale's president.

"It was historic," Balow adds. "We were thinking, 'This means more people will read it and come to Christ.'"

It has also meant taking a closer look at how the company should spend the new surplus income. Tyndale's annual earnings have tripled in the last three years, with a net revenue of $122 million in the last fiscal year.

Although Taylor would not reveal the company's net income, he said it was far above the profits of other large Christian publishing companies such as Thomas Nelson. Although the Nashville-based Nelson had a revenue exceeding $250 million last year, it brought in less than $10 million worth of net income. Since small margins like this are typical for publishers, Tyndale's success has been all the more impressive to industry leaders.

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November 13 2000, Vol. 44, No. 13