MY THANKS to John Paculabo for kind permission to post his letter to retailers — which he mentioned yesterday, Friday 30th July 2010 — for download here. Some retailers will have already received it by email, others can expect to receive it by post within the next few days.
As John himself explains, it’s a long letter — three pages of A4 — in which John sets out to address recent concerns raised both here and privately, looking at issues such as distribution and fulfilment, direct sales and digital downloads in particular. John outlines initial proposals for ways forward that should work for all of us, acknowledges that mistakes have been made, seeks to reassure us that these have been genuine mistakes with absolutely no intention to compete with or undermine high street retailers, and finally invites us to share the journey: “to walk this road together”.
Rather than reproduce the full letter, I’ve simply excerpted the opening paragraphs: to read the rest, download the pdf: Kingsway Letter to Retailers (1.6mb).
John writes:
Dear Retailer,
I apologise for the length of this letter, but it is written to bring you up to speed in a number of areas, including distribution, fulfillment, direct and digital sales to name but four, and so I would appreciate if you could make time to read this carefully.
Distribution
Since the decision to bring home distribution from STL in Carlisle, we have worked tirelessly in the pursuit of of providing you, the retailer, with a first class service; as a consequence this task has brought many challenges. Many of the skills that we previously possessed in this activity had been lost in the last 20 years.
I am aware that we have some way to go in this respect; however, I am extremely confident that within a relatively short space of time, our service to you will be much improved and by the end of October at the latest, we shall return to levels of excellence that many of you will remember.
Our new distribution system marries perfectly into our accounts package but has proved to be somewhat inflexible in certain areas, and while we forced it to fit our needs, it has been a difficult process. Having to train new staff with little prior knowledge of our products or the new system also added to our distribution difficulties, however, we continue to work extremely hard to improve our service to you. Having now completed our annual stock-take (our year begins June 1st) we are confident that we have stock integrity and therefore going forward, fulfillment of orders will increase…
My wife came home from visiting friends on a Saturday afternoon, and caught me hunched over a laptop in the living room: “What have you been doing all day?”
“I’ve been planning to start a publishing company,” I replied. Even despite my history of crazy ideas, this one managed to catch her by surprise. But I was being quite serious. There were a number of factors leading up to the formation of Wide Margin Books.
I’d been working as a missionary in Japan, and there been influenced greatly by an author and church planter, Mitsuo Fukuda. I really wanted to share what he was saying with the rest of the Church, and so I translated one of his books, Mentoring Like Barnabas into English and shopped the manuscript around a few publishers. The silence was deafening.
I’d also worked in technical publishing in the past, both as an author and an editor, and my experience was that publishers were people who worked with authors get their ideas into print, and that anyone with a good message, with the help of a good publisher, could produce a good book.
But here I was, being told that someone that nobody had heard of (and, I suspected, with a name that was difficult for people to pronounce) would not be able to come up with a book that sold. That wasn’t true in the computer world, and I don’t believe that it’s true in the Christian world – in fact, the runaway success of books like The Shack from previously unknown authors rather suggests that it is not. It’s ideas that make great books, not speaking engagements.
As I write, 70% of the world’s Christians are outside the traditional Christian heartlands of Western Europe and North America. Equally as I write, 99% of the top-selling Christian books on Amazon.com are by authors from Western Europe and North America. (The one exception being Ravi Zacharias – an Indian-born Canadian-American.) While people from our own culture certainly have messages that are easier for us to understand, digest and apply, I believe that there are great ideas out there already in the Body of Christ, and that it’s imperative for us to be hearing those voices from the rest of the Church and learning from their experience – particularly in areas where the Church is growing fastest of all!
Once it’s out there, a book or a sermon is a monologue — there is little chance to be corrected or to interact with others.
While thinking about the idea of hearing the voices of others, I realised from my missionary work that writing books is like writing sermons: if you do it in isolation, you can end up writing things that are sometimes unhelpful, often untrue and almost always lacking the full picture, and once it’s out there, a book or a sermon is a monologue — there is little chance to be corrected or to interact with others. In the profoundly interconnected world we live in, that just isn’t good enough any more.
Christians and Catastrophe
When writing computer books my work was always checked by a panel of independent reviewers to ensure that I had considered all the possibilities, and readers could send in errata for me to confirm and correct; what would it look like if Christian books were reviewed by a panel of independent experts with different points of view, and if readers could challenge the author on ideas that they thought were incorrect or miscategorised? That would certainly keep our authors honest, and they would probably produce better books at the end of it!
So Wide Margin’s main aim is to provide opportunity for voices to be heard, primarily through publishing books from non-Western and first-time authors. Our first book, Christians and Catastrophe is already available; look out for Mitsuo Fukuda’s church planting manual, Upward, Outward, Inward, which will be released in September!
Reviews of Christians and Catastrophe (most recent first)
Anyone who has visited the Kingswayshop.com will notice a small victory for us.
Gone are the “Our Price” “RRP” and “You Save” boxes on the pages of most products.
Gone are the bogus “Pre-Order” Discounts.
Replaced simply with a “Web Price” and, nothing else.
It has yet to filter down to Kingsway owned PuraShop.com, but this is a serious step in the right direction.
I on the few items i have checked, the “Web Price” is the old “our price” so they are still undercutting their retail partners, but in a way that is neither illegal, nor lies to their own customers.
It is not entirely bannished, the search page still has some remnant of “RRP” and “You Save”, but I am willing to overlook this as a small oversight, or a “work in progress” glitch.
Indeed, on all the “Pre Order” titles that i looked at, there is no evidence of any exclusive saving to be had by placing the pre-order, no indication as to what the price will be once it is releases, and as i mentioned, with the offers they are making available to retail partners on “Pre-orders” we should be well on our way to achieving price-parity on pre-orders anyway.
Well spotted- this must have been updated this morning after 10am or so……
This doesn’t happen overnight, so some serious thinking must have been going on somewhere behind the scenes- for some time. Might have been nice to note somewhere that this was underway- would have saved a few of us a lot of pondering & heartsearching?!
None the less welcome for all that.
I will not now, of course, be pursuing a formal complaint with the OFT
It has since been brought to my attention that the £13.48 pre-order offer originated from eden.co.uk, not Kingsway. I have therefore withdrawn my original post. If anyone knows what Kingsway’s pre-order offer was, please leave a comment or contact me directly.
The basic issue of undermining trade elsewhere and misleading customers by advertising products at RRPs that the publisher/producer never in fact charges remains the same, however, and so my intention to notify the Office of Fair Trading of this ongoing situation remains unchanged.
Formal notice, John: sort this folly out — today, please — or, as advised to you and others by email this morning, I shall be registering a formal complaint with the OFT. Over ten weeks have passed since I first raised concerns here; a full week has passed since July 21st, the date by which you indicated your intention to address the matter: more than sufficient time to straighten things out but with no evidence of any action taken.
Please note that this is neither a bluff nor a threat: more a case of weary resignation. I do not regard initiating formal proceedings against a Christian organisation as something to be undertaken lightly. I remain hopeful that Kingsway will acknowledge the error of their ways and take appropriate remedial action before such intervention becomes necessary.
Anyone who’d care to join me in finalising and submitting a formal complaint to the OFT, please get in touch. Thank you.
7/7: Muslim Perspectives: introductory flyer (pdf, 795kb)
My thanks to Hasan Ahmed of Rabita publishing for kindly providing me with a downloadable copy (pdf, 795kb) of their flyer introducing 7/7: Muslim Perspectives, published earlier this month to coincide with the 5th anniversary of the 2005 London bombings.
Whatever your view of Islam, one thing we as Christians cannot afford to do is to ignore our Muslim brothers and sisters, and nor must we fall into the fool’s trap of stereotyping all Muslims as the same: there are as many different perspectives within the Islamic community as there are in our own. This is a book that opens the door to dialogue and a better understanding between our two faiths and shows very clearly that Islam is not the enemy that some wish to portray it as.
This book explores and articulates insights, reactions and experiences of a wide range of Muslim men and women following the events of 7/7 – their feelings, anxieties and concerns. Also how they negotiated their own position with mainstream society and with each other in the aftermath. They reflect on the event and express their personal response, serving as a starting point for an exploration of the challenges and expectations which the future holds for them.
As the contributors come from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds, and a wide variety of spiritual practices, this project offers a rich mosaic of lived experience, subjective accounts of people’s hopes, worries and fears. In doing so, it offers a deeper meaning and understanding of Muslim lives in this country. It serves equally to put into perspective Islamic extremist ideologies in fringe groups.
The book offers a compelling range of testimony to those with an interest in the lives of Muslims – students, journalists, politicians, policy makers, academics etc. The benefits of this book are that it gives a voice to Muslims who are rarely heard, and an opportunity to disseminate those voices in such a way as to promote cross-cultural bonds and amity.
It’s all happening at Living Oasis, with Living Oasis Edinburgh gearing up for a grand reopening soon — doors open Saturday July 31st, official opening ceremony planned for September — having at long last secured a temporary lease in the former Wesley Owen premises on George Street: keep an eye on their new facebook page for updates and photos (you’ll need to update your facebook ‘likes’ if you’ve been following the old Wesley Owen Edinburgh page).
Living Oasis: The Story So Far: News Summer 2010 (pdf, 1.5mb)
The Living Oasis Summer 2010 newsletter is available for download (pdf, 1.5mb) and includes introductions to each of the stores by the staff (pp.2-3) along with an outline of plans for a new online store due to be launched “by late summer 2010″ (p.4). Living Oasis online will seek to complement rather than compete with the high street stores, offering price parity with the shops in the hope that applying five key principles — summed up under the headings Excellence, Equity, Encounter, Expertise, Engage — will be sufficient to win customer loyalty over the temptation of lower prices elsewhere. A sixth ‘E’ — Experience — will no doubt prove telling, but one can only wish Living Oasis every success in the venture.
Now some reflections from Richard Howarth of Ignite Creative, producers of the Living Oasis DVD that you may have seen.
Richard writes:
AS someone who believes Christians need to be seen if we are going to be heard in the wider community, I was gutted to hear late last year the Wesley Owen chain was going to be broken up, with the potential loss of a well-known brand across the country.
But it was not just about the name. When so many people only latch onto headlines about declining church attendances and miss the good stuff – something I’m fairly certain of after 25 years in the secular press – the Wesley Owen story seemed to offer further proof of a religion in irreversible decline.
The reality, of course, has been quite different as a number of groups have stepped up to keep shops alive, meaning there have been more good stories than bad stories to come out of this situation.
The Nationwide Christian Trust is one of those that got involved. It saw the opportunity to rescue many of those shops that went into administration and also to develop a radical, long-term vision that would give them a much bigger profile on the high street.
Its Living Oasis brand has already had plenty of exposure as shops have been reopened but the plan is to do much more and fully develop their potential for outreach. They want to relocate them, put a coffee shop rather than books in the shop window, offer children’s play areas and more, while still stocking the full range of Christian resources.
This might all sound a bit bewildering for those with an expectation of what a Christian bookshop looks like.
So to show how exciting it all could be – and to encourage support for the plans – the Trust turned to Ignite Creative, a Christian video production company based in Coventry. The two had worked together before and the Trust was certain a DVD was a great way to get its message across and get people on board.
There was a chance to glimpse the future at the Christian Resources Exhibition in May, where Living Oasis had a working shop set up in the new way. This was also Ignite’s chance to do the filming ready for the promotional DVD.
Living Oasis: DVD still featuring Andy Twilley
Rev Andy Twilley from the Nationwide Christian Trust features on it setting out the plans and there are also interviews with many of the people who came for a coffee or for a closer look, including Adrian Plass and GP Taylor.
There was a real buzz around the place and out of all this, Ignite produced two versions of the DVD.
The Trust and Living Oasis seem delighted at the outcome, describing it as, ‘a resource which was far more than just a film… something which really made an impact in a way which would connect well with our target audience’ and hundreds of copies have already been sent out.
So if, like me, you have had spirits lifted by the great things that have happened already in 2010, I think you’ll be equally impressed if you see the DVD Ignite has come up with to show what could be happening in the future on a high street near you… and you can find a version right now on the Nationwide Christian Trust website!
Living Oasis mock-up store at CRE as featured on the DVD
Recently a friend on facebook asked if I knew what was going on with Authentic Media since the collapse of the old STL: had they survived? The answer, I’m pleased to say, is a resounding yes. I invited them to bring us up to date:
Authentic
Following the news of IBS-STL UK going into administration at the end of 2009, many were left feeling in the dark and uncertain about what the future would hold. It was a challenging and unsettling time for us all. On behalf of the Authentic team we want to express our gratitude for all your prayers and kind messages of support.
For those who are not aware, Authentic Media were bought by Koorong Books Pty Ltd, an Australian retail company, on 19th December 2009. We are working extremely hard to establish our new company with Koorong and whilst we still have some difficult decisions to make and various challenges to overcome, we are excited and look forward to strengthening our working relationship with you all.
Mark Finnie, Authentic Media’s Publishing Director adds:
The Authentic team’s strong relationship with authors and customers, its creativity, dedication and passion, combined with the sales and marketing expertise of Koorong, has ensured a great start for the new Authentic. With two awards at CRE, six new titles in the best-sellers lists and great coverage in the media we have valued the support of our loyal customers.
We are pleased to have reprinted many strong sellers this year, including Seriously Funny, Son of Hamas, Song of the Nightingale and Father Forgive and are working on the re-release of five D. A. Carson titles and six further A. W. Tozer books.
We are also pleased to announce that the popular International Children’s Bible is now available once again from Authentic. Unfortunately, due to contractual issues, we cannot say the same for the NCV Youth Bible. We are disappointed that we will no longer be producing this Bible, however, we are pleased to say that we are currently working on a new and exciting Authentic Youth Bible for Spring 2011.
In order for us to rebuild and strengthen Authentic it is important for us to maintain good communication with you all; your comments and feedback are invaluable to us so please do keep in touch:
TODAY, Wednesday 21st July 2010, is the date suggested by John Paculabo for a meeting in London at which he proposed to address the concerns of the trade over Kingsway’s pricing practices and to further enlighten us about their “aspirations and many other issues and their possible impact”:
I am more than willing to address the issues raised in the blog in recent weeks with regards to Kingsway, pricing, internet etc, and I am more than willing to share with you our aspirations and many other issues and their possible impact including a generation that expects; no demands that music is free!
However I am not willing to commit discussion to a blog where those with any axe to grind can snipe from the cover of their office, but face to face is different. I am more than happy to meet in London or anywhere else for that matter at a suitable location, and with an independent chairman. (Board meetings and Charity work means that I would not be available until the middle of July), so let’s set a date of Wednesday July 21st at 11am, venue to be decided.
To the best of my knowledge, however, John has not followed through on that offer and nor has he come forward with any other way of communicating with us on these issues. I’m aware of some ongoing correspondence between Kingsway and a number of individual trade customers, but as far as I know none has resulted in any resolution of the specific concerns raised here: at best, it seems to be case of, “We hear what you say,” with a subtext of and we don’t give two hoots.
This observation is not intended in any way to denigrate Kingway’s reps or customer services staff who have, in my own experience and according to others’ reports, remained unfailingly courteous and helpful: I am sure that they share our concerns and are no doubt frustrated by what appear to be the intransigent attitudes from higher up within the company, but they remain powerless to respond. That the company’s senior management has allowed this situation to drag on for so long strikes me as both astonishing and very sad, and it reflects very poorly upon an organisation that practices excellence in so many other areas.
On the basis of his responses thus far, John’s claim to be “more than willing to address the issues raised” appears to be if not actually disingenuous, then what, exactly? Nonetheless, John, if you’re reading, my invitation to you to contribute a Guest Post remains open: a blank canvas upon which you can expound your point of view without editorial input beyond a brief introduction; you have my email address (I’m sure you wouldn’t, John, but no sniping or axe-grinding, please).
An Unwholesome Witch Hunt?
Last week I made so bold as to suggest that Kingsway are not the only Christian music supplier out there: there are alternatives. Is such a suggestion unreasonable or irresponsible? You, gentle reader, must decide, but Ian responded as follows:
I think there is an unwholesome witch hunt of Kingsway going on here that is unedifying and quite nasty.
I confess that this leaves me baffled. Unwholesome? Witch hunt? Unedifying? Quite nasty? I’d be immensely grateful if someone could spell out the point at which my posts or these discussions have degenerated to that point, please, because I truly can’t see it. I guess, on reflection, my knockabout post — Weekend Knockabout: The Ultimate Christian Product Awards — was a tad overdone, but it was clearly flagged as humour, highlighting some rather crass marketing. I did, however, feel that I had set the record straight with my subsequent post, In Defence of Kingsway, in which I invited those who wished to sing Kingsway’s praises to do so freely: none did.
A friend elsewhere has this as his forum signature: “The facts are friendly.” Unfortunately in Kingsway’s case the facts are rather more messy than friendly — but neither I nor anyone else here, to the best of my knowledge, has manipulated the truth or promulgated any falsehoods about Kingsway: again, I simply ask anyone who can identify any inaccurate reporting or misrepresentation to do so, please, so that I can straighten things out.
I’m sorry you think this is a witch hunt Ian. I don’t think this is a Witch Hunt. I don’t think anyone wants to burn Kingsway nor demonise them, in fact those on this blog have continually expressed their desire to work with and to be in communion with them, but they are making it hard to do so currently in a way that others in the same industry just are not.
Calling a company to question over an action they are undertaking, an action not undertaken by their own parent company David C. Cook, is not to my mind witch hunting.
You Have Shown Us - Songs of Justice, Mercy and Humility - Pre-order price, £9.99; RRP, £12.99
I asked:
Will customers placing ‘pre-orders’ for this item really save £3.00, 23% off the advertised RRP? Or will the price simply go up by £1.00 as per the Kendrick album? Will Kingsway rise to the Micah Challenge’s call for trade justice in their own business practices?
And what we find in practice is:
You Have Shown Us - Songs of Justice, Mercy and Humility - now available, Kingsway price £10.99; Kingsway RRP, £12.99 (screenshot taken 29/06/2010)
That screenshot was taken just 8 days after the advertised release date of 21/06/2010: the product went on sale straightaway at £2.00 below the so-called RRP; and as I prepare this post, the same offer remains online at kingswayshop.com. Were customers placing pre-orders at £9.99 in anticipation of a £3.00 (23%) saving misled? You decide.
Next up, the Ton of Worship 2 CD collection. There’s no doubt about it, this collection represents superb value for money and I applaud Kingsway’s initiative in making the Ton of Worship series available. But once again we find a pre-order offer that does not live up to the promise:
Kingsway Ton of Worship 2 - pre-order offer: £8.99, save £1 (screenshot 08/06/2010)
But what do we find on product release? Exactly the same offer, still available as I write:
Kingsway Ton of Worship 2 - out now, £8.99 save £1 (screenshot 28/06/2010)
But was this not a pre-order offer? Were customers who pre-ordered in anticipation of a £1 saving misled? How can so-called RRPs hold any validity when a producer never sells their products at those prices, even for a nominal period of time? And lest anyone should protest, “But it’s only £1″ — when was the last time you were shortchanged or overcharged by £1 and didn’t object?
The facts are indeed messy as Kingsway seem to arrogate to themselves the right to ignore the pricing guidelines that most other retailers — Christian or otherwise — assiduously abide by. If simple fact-finding and highlighting of bad practice is “an unwholesome witch hunt” then I plead guilty as charged — but in witch hunts is it not normally the weak and defenceless being hunted down by a baying mob of inquisitors? Kingsway are neither weak nor defenceless, and we who wish to trade with them are not a baying mob seeking their destruction. No, Ian: whilst I appreciate your raising these concerns, you have completely misread the situation.
The reality is rather — as referred to by Melanie — summed up superbly by John Duncan as follows:
… the point at issue here is whether Kingwsay are negotiating [the discussion about the future of bricks and mortar shops] with honesty and integrity. If Kingsway had simply shrugged their collective shoulders and said that the retail trade is dead in the water, and that they were focussing all their efforts onto the ‘online customer’, I am sure we would all be very upset but at least we would know where we stood. However in fact Kingsway are claiming to be supporting the retail trade, and at this time are wanting us to sign up to their partnership deals.
In my opinion the point Phil and others are making here, is that the practice of using an RRP that is simply a fiction, in terms of what they themselves actually charge, is an unfair and fundamentally dishonest pratice and discriminates heavily against the retail trade. I agree with the point they are making. It is this perceived dishonesty at the heart of the way Kingsway are trying to negotiate the change in business model that is causing this highly charged debate.
Highly charged? Perhaps. An unwholesome witch hunt? By no means: Kingsway are emphatically not the enemy — but fundamentally dishonest business practices and Kingsway’s apparent willingness to give in to them most certainly are; and whilst we may not be our brothers’ keepers, we certainly do have a duty of care to not stand idly by and allow Kingsway to suicidally sink themselves in this mire unprotested.
John referred to the “possible impact” of Kingsway’s “aspirations”. I suggest that he would do well to reflect upon the actual impact their current business practices are having upon their trading partners: we too, John, are your customers: do you truly despise us and our concerns?
My hope and prayer is that if John Paculabo lacks the wherewithal to deal with this situation himself then perhaps someone from David C Cook will show sufficient grace to step in and give him whatever support is needed to take control of Kingsway, their wayward adoptive child.
K B Walker, author of A Life Less Lost, has reported a mixed response to a couple of writers’ workshops — ‘Writing from Life’ — which she offered free of charge to local bookshops in the Huddersfield area last month, with seven participants turning out for the event at the Orchard Bookshop, Denby Dale, but only one participant at Huddersfield Christian Bookshop: An experiment
Not one to give up easily, however, Kimm is determined to offer more: if you run a bookshop in the North East, why not contact her to discuss possibilities? This strikes me as a superb way for authors and booksellers to work together and support one another, and an innovative change from the more common author signing session; and if you’re further away, well, why not contact her anyway? You never know what might transpire…
THE SHACK has now gone from multi-million copy bestseller to multi-million dollar legal-disaster-in-progress as its original author and publishers have gone from being best buddies to opponents bickering over royalties. Very sad.
Full story in the LA Times, The flak over ‘The Shack’, and some helpful reflections for wannabe writers from Steve Laube of The Steve Laube Agency, The Shack Gets Sued: when it comes to splitting the proceeds, a handshake is not enough, even amongst Christians.
RT @notbovvered: #UKCBD Blog: Shaped by the Story: Hot off the press from BRF, Antony Billington introduces Whole Life, Whole Bible http ... 6 days ago
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