Who Are The Big Six Publishers?

You will often see references to the 'Big Six' in discussions about publishing. Who are the Big Six, and why are they important?  The Big Six are important because they control around 90% of the books published in the United States, and (through their international imprints) a huge proportion of all publishing worldwide. They are:

• Hachette;
• HarperCollins;
• Macmillan;
• Penguin;
• Random House and
• Simon & Schuster

As The Writers Workshop points out, they are all subsidiaries of much larger media corporations, and each publish books under dozens of imprints. Several major Christian publishing houses are actually Big Six subsidiaries.

Within the US, the major Christian publishers participate in the annual Christy Awards. They are:
Abingdon Press

Barbour Publishing

Baker Publishing Group (which publishes under the names Bethany House Publishers and Revell Publishing)

Broadman & Holman Publishers

Credo House Publishers

David C. Cook

Deward Publishing Company

Hatchette Book Group USA (an imprint of Hatchette, one of the Big Six)

Harvest House Publishers

Howard Books (an imprint of Simon & Schuster, one of the Big Six)

Journey Forth, a division of BJU Press 

Kregel Publications

Marcher Lord Press

Micah House Media

Moody Publishers

New Hope Publishers

Penguin Group USA (a Big Six publisher)

Pecan Row Press

Sophia Institute

Summerside Press

Tate Publishing & Enterprises (subsidy publishing)

Thomas Nelson (an imprint of HarperCollins, a Big Six publisher). Thomas Nelson also have a subsidy publishing imprint, WestBow Press.

Tyndale House

WaterbrookMultnomah Publishing Group (an imprint of Random House, one of the Big Six)

Whitaker House

Winepress Group

Zondervan (an imprint of HarperCollins, a Big Six publisher)

Harlequin Mills & Boon do not participate in the Christy Awards, but publish over 100 Christian romance novels each year through their Love Inspired, Love Inspired Historical, Love Inspired Suspense and Steeple Hill Women's Fiction lines. They have also recently taken over the HeartQuest imprint, which will add another four genre romances per month.

Faithwords, the inspirational imprint of Big Six publisher Hachette, is also not a Christy Awards participant. Hachette publish several big-name Christian non-fiction authors such as Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen, as well as the world’s most famous Latter Day Saint author, Stephenie Meyer. Faithwords also provide distribution services for titles published by Windblown Media, a little-known company founded to publish The Shack.

This is not to say that Christian books are only published by American companies. There are a number of specialist Australasian Christian publishers, including:

Acorn Press

Ark House Press

Even Before Publishing

HSM (Heart Soul Mind)

Hyaline House

Matthias Media

Salt and Light Publishing

Many of these smaller publishers are also members of the Christian Small Publishers Association, a

network of over 100 small Christian publishers in the US and internationally.

What is Christian Fiction?

Believe it or not, there is no clear definition of what is (or what is not) Christian Fiction.


However, there are fairly clear definitions of what consitutes Christian Publishing. The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) is an international organization of companies that are involved in the publishing and distribution of Christian content worldwide.

Content published by ECPA members must be consistent with their Statement of Faith, which is essentially the same as the Statement of Faith of the National Association of Evangelicals. 

The Statement of Faith of the Association is as follows:

I. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
II. We believe there is only one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
III. We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
IV. We believe that for the salvation of the lost and sinful, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
V. We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
VI. We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
VII. We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Further information is available at the ECPA website.  Other relevant industry organisations are the Christian Small Publishers Association, a network of over 100 small Christian publishers in the US and internationally, and the CBA (formerly the Christian Booksellers Association), the trade association for approximately 1,700 US Christian retail outlets.