A Bridge to Global Bookselling
BB: Do you sell downloadable audio?
Silber: Yes, we currently have eight audiobooks on iTunes in several languages, and they are also available [for download] through Audible.com.
BB: Can you share some history on the company and its growth?
Silber: … The history actually began soon after the release of Mr. Hubbard's watershed 1950 work, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health." To meet the growing demand throughout the United States for more titles, the first publishing organization devoted exclusively to Mr. Hubbard's works was established in 1951 in Wichita, Kansas. The following year, Mr. Hubbard moved his offices to Phoenix, Ariz., and the publishing operation followed. … Publications were also soon emanating from London and Philadelphia houses.
In 1955, Distribution Center Inc. was established in Silver Spring, Md. Located [close] to the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C.—where L. Ron Hubbard then served as executive director—this facility provided Mr. Hubbard's books and lectures across five continents. [The company relocated and expanded several additional times], and in 1981, it was reincorporated as Bridge Publications Inc.
… [Ten years later], the manufacturing and distribution divisions moved to Bandini Boulevard in Commerce, California … where we later installed our first digital press. Then, in 2006, the one-room print shop expanded into a full-scale, digital-book-manufacturing plant.
In June 2009, … Bridge Publications brought all functions together in one location: a 276,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility on Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. The new building houses our state-of-the-art, digital, in-house book and compact disc production facility, a fully automated distribution center as well as administrative offices to oversee the promotion, marketing and sales of L. Ron Hubbard's nonfiction materials.
BB: Does Bridge publish books from other authors?
Silber: [No.] With over 5,000 writings and 3,000 recorded lectures published in multiple languages, the volume of demand for [L. Ron Hubbard's] works means his materials comprise the full scope of our publications. For example, the book "Dianetics" has now sold over 21 million copies alone.
