In 1942, the Era's business manager, John Kenneth Orton, started Bookcraft as a private publishing house in Salt Lake City, Utah.
John A. Widtsoe and Richard L. Evans, staff members of the Era and early supporters of Bookcraft, referred Durham to Orton's new publishing house.
In 1969, it moved again to a West Valley City location between Mountain States Bindery and Publisher's Press, the businesses that actually printed and produced Bookcraft's publications.
[11] Because Deseret Book was the largest LDS publisher and bookseller, independents like Bookcraft also distributed to national retailers like B. Dalton, Media Play, and Barnes & Noble.
[14] Infobases president and CEO, Brad Pelo, assumed these same roles in the new Bookcraft, Inc., and WordPerfect founder Alan C. Ashton became chairman.
[15] By 1999, Bookcraft was adding about 100 products annually to its catalog, including general authority titles, an important market shared only with Deseret Book.
[16][17] In early 1999, Bookcraft was acquired by Deseret Management Corporation (DMC), the parent company of the LDS Church's for-profit businesses.
This allowed the church to expand in the larger "values-oriented" publishing market, and reduce translation costs of titles for international sale.
[19] DMC then formed World Media Inc. to oversee Bookcraft's electronic projects, and decide fate of Infobase products and GospeLink.