The privately owned company focuses on non-fiction titles in the New Age genre (now generally referred to as mind-body-spirit category), but began as a publisher of coffee table books.

Beyond Words Publishing was founded in 1983 by Richard Cohn, Bob Goodman, and Cindy Black in Hawaii.

[1] Focused on images of sea life by Christopher Newbert, the book is hound bound using Niger goatskin and kept in a box made of koa wood and lined with Brazilian suede.

[3] The company published The American Eagle, a 128-page coffee table book in 1988 by Tom and Pat Leeson.

[1] In 1990, they were the first publishers of works by author and therapist John Gray, printing Men, Women and Relationships.

[2] To drive sales, the company was innovative with marketing, with activities such as promoting books at tourist attractions like zoos, selling through fundraisers, and co-marketing with other publishers.

[8] That year, Beyond Words had its first big success, after more than 250 titles to their name, with Masaru Emoto's Hidden Messages of Water.

[8][9] By March 2007, the book had become the top seller on Amazon.com as well as appearing on The New York Times bestseller list, and had 1.75 million copies in print.

[8] That month Simon & Schuster ordered an additional 2 million copies, the largest reorder in their history.

[1] Both Cohn and Black took a New Age class at the Burklyn Business School in California, which helped lay the foundation for starting Beyond Words.