Beyond Words Publishing
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| Status | Active |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1983 |
| Founder | Richard Cohn Bob Goodman Cindy Black |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location |
Hillsboro, Oregon 45°32′23″N 122°53′33″W / 45.53972°N 122.89250°WCoordinates: 45°32′23″N 122°53′33″W / 45.53972°N 122.89250°W |
| Key people | Richard Cohn Cindy Black |
| Publication types | Books |
| Nonfiction topics | New Age |
| Fiction genres | Non-fiction |
| Official website | www.beyondword.com |
Beyond Words Publishing is a book publishing company located in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1983, the company was unprofitable in its early years, though its works were award winning. The privately owned company focuses on non-fiction titles in the New Age genre (now generally referred to as mind-body-spirit category), but began as a publisher of coffee table books. Beyond Words has a national distribution agreement with Simon & Schuster’s Altria Books imprint and has published works by John Gray, Masaru Emoto, and Rhonda Byrne, including her book The Secret.
Beyond Words Publishing was founded in 1983 by Richard Cohn, Bob Goodman, and Cindy Black in Hawaii. Black and Cohn later married. The company started after Cohn’s family sold Cohn Bros. furniture company to McMahan's Furniture in 1982 and Cohn was looking for a new direction. The company’s first book, Within a Rainbowed Sea, came out in 1984. The coffee table book won 11 awards at the New York Art Directors Show and was named the most outstanding book of the year by the Printing Industries of America in 1984. Focused on images of sea life by Christopher Newbert, the book is hound bound using Niger goatskin and kept in a box made of koa wood and lined with Brazilian suede. Sold for $2,250, the book was given to Japanese Emperor Hirohito on his 80th birthday by then U.S. President Ronald Reagan. A calendar featuring the images took second place in a Printing Industries of America competition in 1988. As of 1988 there were four editions and 52,000 copies of the book.
The company’s second book was Molokai: An Island in Time by photographer Richard Cooke III that came out in 1985. The publishing company relocated to Oregon in 1986 where it was incorporated, and by 1988 Bob Goodman had left the company that had failed to turn a profit after putting out 12 titles. Beyond Words settled on Cohn’s 12-acre (4.9 ha) farm near Hillsboro. Both of the first two books were printed by Oregon printer Dynagraphics, Inc., with printing costs exceeding $500,000 for the books that were to retail for $2,000 each. Beyond Words had an exclusive distribution with Waldenbooks for the first two titles, but the deal later fell through. The company was left deeply in debt after these two books, with founder Black taking a job to help pay off the debt. In October 1988, a lawsuit between the printer Dynagraphics and U. S. National Bank concerned Beyond Words’ ability to pay its bill to Dynagraphics for the printing. Dynagraphics won the lawsuit for $321,000 when the jury decided that the bank had a duty to warn Dynagraphics that co-owner Cohn lacked the funds to pay for the printing of the two books that were part of their Earthsong Project.
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