32 Business View Magazine - September 2016
Direct Holdings Global
For those of a certain age
Those of a certain age – Baby Boomers and older –
might remember when the Time Life Company, which
published two of America’s most popular magazines,
Time and Life, first gained fame as a seller of books.
Founded in 1961, as the book marketing division of
Time, Inc., over its life span, Time Life published hun-
dreds of well-respected science, history, and do it your-
self book series and sold them to its magazine sub-
scribers and millions of others by direct mail. Several
of those book series garnered substantial critical ac-
claim - unusual for a mass-market, mail order house.
The company ended its book publishing operations in
2003, but its books can still be found in school librar-
ies and used-book stores throughout the country.
In 1966, Time Life added music to its offerings, sell-
ing box record sets and collections via its Time-Life Re-
cords subsidiary. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s,
the selection of music grew to include classical, jazz,
swing, opera, pop, country, rock, and show tunes. As
