The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) annually presents its prestigious Christian Book Awards for outstanding work in several major consumer book publishing categories. ECPA recognizes children’s books, various adult fiction and non-fiction categories, Bibles, devotionals, and reference works. Hundreds of books are entered each year, yet only a handful win one of the coveted Christian Book Awards, called initially Gold Medallion Awards. Byron Williamson, leading publishing teams throughout his career, has cumulatively been involved in winning more than 40 awards.
With hundreds of entries each year, competition for the awards is undoubtedly fierce, making winning even more of an accomplishment. This proves the quality of the book’s content, design, and production values. Williamson has significantly impacted Christian publishing throughout his career, helping shape the landscape of Christian literature, partly through dramatically expanded merchandising with such retail partners as Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Borders, and Target.
Awards From the Very Beginning
In the children’s book publishing category, beginning with his launch of Worthy Publishing in 1984, Williamson won the Children’s Gold Medallion Award for conceiving and publishing the International Children’s Bible (ICB) translation, initially promoted by Dr. James C. Dobson on his national radio show. Among other award-winning titles, Worthy won for such children’s books as Lawrence O. Richard’s It Couldn’t Just Happen and Hans Wilhelm’s What Does God Do? As a start-up company, larger competitors noticed Worthy’s remarkable early successes.
Winners at Word Publishing
Then later, in 1988, Worthy was acquired by Word Publishing, a CapCities/ABC Company, now Walt Disney, based in Las Colinas, Texas. Williamson built a team that rapidly won many additional Christian Book Awards, including Charles R. Swindoll’s The Grace Awakening, Max Lucado’s In the Eye of the Storm, and The Adventures in Odyssey Bible by Focus on the Family. Charles Colson’s landmark work, The Body, was awarded ECPA’s Book of the Year in 1994 for the most outstanding book among all categories.
Thomas Nelson Award Winners
Word’s successes led to it being acquired in fiscal 1993 by Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville, TN. Soon after, Byron was named the President of the Nelson-Word Publishing Group. The new group accepted a large number of additional awards, including for the New York Times bestselling novel The Oath by Frank Peretti, featured on the front page of the New York Times on October 30, 1995. The Nelson-Word Group also won with diverse, high-profile bestsellers such as Life on the Edge by Dr. James C. Dobson, Searching for God in America by FOX News analyst Hugh Hewitt, Anne Graham Lotz’s The Vision of His Glory, and John MacArthur’s The MacArthur Study Bible.
More Recent Award Winners
Moving into the twenty-first century, Williamson’s team at newly founded Integrity Publishers won multiple ECPA Christian Book Awards, including for David Jeremiah’s My Heart’s Desire, Frank Peretti’s All Is Well, Max Lucado’s It’s Not About Me, David Veerman’s His Passion, a devotional linked to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ motion picture, as well as for Emerson Eggerichs’ Love & Respect. As Williamson eagerly affirms, the impact of these remarkable books on readers was by far the most satisfying dimension of his work.
In a nutshell, Byron Williamson has made a name for himself in the world of Christian media, having been involved in the industry for over 35 years. He has advocated for more diverse authors, including Black authors and women, a dramatic expansion in retail distribution, and the development of new digital tools and online platforms for delivering Christian content to readers.
