HarperCollins Christian Publishing signs exclusive licensing partnership with Editorial CLIE

NASHVILLE, Tenn., April 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Last week, HarperCollins Christian Publishing entered into a licensing agreement with Spanish publishing house, Editorial CLIE.  With the exception of Spain, HarperCollins Christian Publishing will hold global exclusive print selling and distribution rights for the entire CLIE active product catalog, front and back list.

Located in Viladecavalls, Spain, a suburb of Barcelona, CLIE is well-known in the Spanish Christian world for publishing classic authors such as C. H. Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, William McDonald and Alfred Edershein, in Spanish.  The agreement also includes licensing of the popular 1977 revised Reina-Valera Spanish Bible translation.  With one of the largest selections of Spanish reference materials for pastors and church leaders, CLIE will remain a separate imprint under HarperCollins Christian Publishing's International team, joining Grupo Nelson and Vida.

In the early twentieth century, Samuel Vila began CLIE to share the Gospel with the Spanish-speaking world.  After the Spanish Civil War, when evangelical literature was totally forbidden under Spain's dictatorship, CLIE (Committee of Literature for Evangelical Churches) secretly continued printing and distributing books.  Vila continued to operate CLIE in hiding until Christian ministries were again legalized in 1967.  Vila died at the age of 90, but CLIE continues to operate as a prestigious publishing house.

"Throughout the course of my career, I have had the privilege to periodically work with the Vila family and see how their work has impacted pastors and leaders across Latin America," said Larry Downs, vice president and publisher of Grupo Nelson. "This new relationship allows HarperCollins Christian Publishing to showcase and provide the best Spanish-language resources for the church today- be they from Vida, Grupo, or now CLIE."

Eliseo Vila, president of CLIE added, "The three most important imprints of Christian literature in Spanish: Grupo Nelson, Vida and CLIE, working together under the umbrella of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, involves significant synergies that will result in major benefits for the entire Christian Spanish-speaking world. CLIE will focus efforts on the production of academic books, increase the number of titles available and speedy access to important works. We are very excited about this."

CLIE's current catalog contains more than 200 products and the company will work with the imprint to improve and resurrect some of the 2,000 titles that have been archived. 

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About HarperCollins Christian Publishing: HarperCollins Christian Publishing is comprised of both Thomas Nelson Inc. and Zondervan.  The two publishing groups provide bestselling Bibles, inspirational books, academic resources, curriculum, audio and digital content and live events for the Christian market space.  HarperCollins Christian Publishing inspires the world by serving people with content that promotes biblical principles and honors Jesus Christ. For more information please visit www.harpercollinschristian.com. 

About CLIE: Editorial CLIE (Committee on Literature for Evangelical Churches) is a non for profit religious church organization based in Barcelona (Spain), and involved in the publication of high quality Christian books, especially in the field of academic and reference works, theology and biblical research. The company is ruled by a Board of Directors formed by the most representative Christian leaders of the different churches, denominations and organizations established in Spain with influence in Europe and beyond; Eliseo Vila, son of Samuel Vila, founder, is now President. With more than 80 years of history producing high quality Christian academic materials, CLIE is considered one of the most trusted Christian publishing houses in the Spanish language. For more information please visit www.clie.es

SOURCE HarperCollins Christian Publishing