InterVarsity Press will once again be partnering with the Noble Marketing Group to expand its reach to Christian retailers and academic bookstores. The Noble Marketing Group offers professional sales representation with ten field representatives and two regional account representatives throughout the United States.

InterVarsity Press worked with the Noble Marketing Group for more than eight years up until 2011. At that time Jeff Crosby, InterVarsity Press associate publisher and director of sales and marketing, deployed an in-sourced sales model at IVP for the first time since the mid-1980s. With the decline in the number of retail outlets, both Christian and academic trade, the plan was designed to have more direct contact with retailers in an effort to bring a sharper focus on the InterVarsity Press publishing program.

Crosby said, "When we made the decision to test the in-sourced sales model in August 2011, Noble Marketing president Ted Terry and I agreed that the doors would remain open, both on the IVP and the Noble side of the equation, to work together again."

Crosby worked with the in-house sales team to set certain benchmarks to evaluate the impact of the new model. They determined that even though the in-sourced paradigm brought them into more direct relationship with Christian retail and academic stores, the sales team was unable to reach the breadth of retailers that Noble served.

"We learned a great deal during the sixteen months of our experimental in-sourced sales paradigm," Crosby said. "Even with the decline in the number of retail outlets, we found that our coverage was not as broad or as effective as what Ted Terry and the other members of the Noble Marketing Group afford their client publishers. I'm delighted to once again be working with the Noble team, and I look forward to the fruitful years of partnership ahead of us."

"It's a pleasure to once again represent IVP and their thoughtful books in stores where people can read and be influenced and encouraged," Terry said. "We missed representing their titles over the past sixteen months. I'm grateful that Jeff Crosby and the IVP team once again have placed their faith in Noble Marketing to do the job."