After several years of focusing solely on music and video, Word Entertainment is re-entering the book publishing world with the upcoming release of Shawn Lantz's Congo Vignettes, the story of three generations who were involved in missions in Africa.

Word Distribution President Mark Funderburg told Christian Retailing that the company has been looking for an opportunity to return to book publishing for the last two years and saw Lantz's book as a prime opportunity.

"We had a few artists express interest in doing devotionals, but I'd never found a story so compelling as Congo Vignettes when I was presented with it about a year ago," he said. "I believe we've found the right book and author."

Funderburg said the company also plans to utilize its relationships with its sister companies, including Time-Life in a way to explore opportunities in the general market. He also speculated that future projects would be focused not on publishing a set number of titles, but in "finding the right authors."

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