Imprints
Published under its own name
This house publishes under its own name.
History
A brief history
Word began in Waco, Texas in 1951 as a record label, founded by the 23-year-old Baylor graduate and radio sportscaster Jarrell McCracken with Henry SoRelle and Ted Snider. Its name came from its first release, McCracken's own sixteen-minute spoken-word recording The Game of Life.1 The company grew into Word Incorporated, with divisions in music, distribution and book publishing; McCracken sold a part interest to ABC in 1974 and stayed on as president until 1986.1 The book side, publishing as Word Books and later Word Publishing, moved from Waco to Dallas, and in 1992 the whole company was sold to Thomas Nelson for seventy-two million dollars.2 Its lasting monument is the Word Biblical Commentary, begun in 1977 and catalogued here; the set passed with the company to Thomas Nelson, and since 2013 has been reprinted by Zondervan Academic after HarperCollins acquired Nelson.3 Volumes in this catalogue accordingly carry a Word, a Nelson or a Zondervan imprint depending only on when the copy was printed.
In the library
