The Christian Bookshops Blog

Janet Evans, Dernier Publishing

SOMEWHAT DELAYED, so my apologies to Janet Evans (soon to be Wilson) of Dernier Publishing, who writes…

Many thanks to all of you wonderful booksellers who are stocking our books! It has been great to get to know some of you over the past year, some ‘virtually’, some ‘in the flesh’, as it were. It is great to be working with you and to hear some of your stories. It never ceases to surprise me how creative and ingenious some of you are, with cafés opening, events happening, online stores and social networking all making a difference. Good on you: you are doing a fantastic job. It has also been sad to see more shops closing … every loss is a loss to us all, in a way.

So, what of Dernier Publishing? Here are a few highlights of the last nine months or so:

1. This isn’t strictly Dernier Publishing news, it’s more personal, but for those of you who don’t know, I will be marrying Andrew Wilson on 2nd July. After eight years on my own since my first husband died, it is wonderful to have someone to share life with. We met at CRE last year. (I’ve since met another couple who met at CRE!) Andrew is on the staff of a charity that supports those around the world who are persecuted for their faith in Christ. He is also a former journalist, and does some editing and proof-reading for us.

Youth Fiction from Dernier Publishing

2. We now have nine books out! When I wrote the last piece for Phil’s blog, back in August, we only had six – that’s a 50% increase! Beech Bank Girls II: Making A Difference (chick lit for 10-14s), The Only Way (brilliant book for teens), and The Birthday Shoes (surprise adventure for 8-11s) are all great books. It’s so exciting to see our list grow – not so we can have a bigger stock, but so that we can reach more young people with the good news of Jesus, through exciting, relevant stories. Now that is something to be excited about!

3. Beech Bank Girls I: Every Girl Has A Story was shortlisted for the Christian Resources Together Awards (children over 12 category). Whoo hoo! How amazing is that?! Although we didn’t win, this still means that this book is one of the three most popular Christian books for children of this age in the whole of the UK – wow! Several kind booksellers told me that they thought we should have won – if that was you, thank you very much! Thanks also to everyone who nominated and voted for us, and congratulations particularly to Eleanor Watkins, the author. It’s a brilliant book, worth every penny of the £5.99 price tag! Book III in the series is due for release in October – maybe it will win the award next year?!

4. I did my first ever radio interview on Premier Radio – Lizzie put me at my ease and I was soon into the swing of it. Several enquiries and encouragements have come from that interview, so thank you, Premier Radio!

5. I was asked to present a prize at the Church School Awards (and met Andy from Blue Peter!) This was a great opportunity to begin inroads into books for schools – again, this wasn’t something I set out to do, but the door just opened for us to be there.

6. I Want to Be An Airline Pilot and Beech Bank Girls II: Making a Difference are in the Speaking Volumes catalogue; and The Birthday Shoes was Kingsway’s book of the month in April. So encouraging!

7. We have two more new books coming out in the autumn. Eleanor Watkins has done a brilliant job with the third story in the Beech Bank Girls series; and Living in Hope, the sequel to I Want to Be an Airline Pilot, by Mary Weeks Millard, is due out in October – keep an eye on the Coming Soon pages on our website! Here’s a sneaky preview of the cover illustration:

Living in Hope: cover preview

8. If all of this seems a bit over the top to those of you who are used to dealing with established publishers, please be aware that we started with nothing, not so long ago – precious little knowledge and one computer in my dining room!

It has been continually amazing to see the hand of the Lord at work. Any success we have had is by his grace alone [Editor's note: don't dismiss your own hard work too quickly, Janet! It's grace and guts in this game of following Jesus!]. He has brought along opportunities, made a way where there seemed to be no way, performed many miracles. I do believe that his heart is so much for our young people, who are growing up in an increasingly dark environment, where sin is no longer considered sin, where to go to church and believe in Jesus is weird.

Mostly, we will never hear about or see the results of our books for ourselves, but I sometimes receive encouragements – here’s a recent one, from Gill:

My niece, aged 15, not overly academic, read one right through last night and loved it. I think it’s the first time in her life that she’s read a whole book from choice! Must be good!

May God bless you all.

Janet Evans, Publisher, with Eleanor Watkins, Author of the Beech Bank Girls series, at the Dernier Publishing stand, CRE Sanddown Park 2011

• Dernier Publishing titles are available to the trade from Kingsway or Gardners. Kingsway’s latest New Releases catalogues are available at issuu.com/kingsway
• This post is also available at issuu.com/philgroom

SAD NEWS via facebook as another two branches of Living Oasis prepare to close their doors on July 2nd. Nottingham’s facebook update says it all:

Living Oasis Nottingham and Worthing slated for closure July 2, 2011

Sad news, after 5.30 Saturday 2/7/11 we will be closed down. Living Oasis Worthing also finishing then. Heartfelt thanks to our customers for giving us so much support loyalty and encouragement. Please pray for there to be a Christian bookshop in Nottingham, pray for our colleagues at Worthing, pray for the staff of the remaining Living Oasis shops. Bless you.

A similar facebook update was posted by LivingOasis Worthing on 24th June:

Sad news Living Oasis Worthing is closing on the 2nd of July. Please pray for David, Sabine and Andrea, that the Lord will guide us.

h/t Melanie Carroll, @unicorntreebks:

@notbovvered @philgroom worthing as you reported and also today on fb Nottingham announced they too close on the 2nd. Very very sad.—
melanie carroll (@unicorntreebks) June 25, 2011

ALBATROSS, DODO OR JEWEL

‘Is there still a place for Christian bookshops to sparkle on the High Street’?

Introduction

Last year I was asked to give a lecture on Christian Retailing to the Librarians’ Christian Fellowship and Steve Briars of CRE invited me to deliver similar material at this year’s Christian Resources Together.  I am delighted to do so – although the two audiences are quite different!  Since that lecture in April 2010, things have moved on a pace and we are learning to live with constant challenges and change. However, there is no lack of evidence that we are involved in changing people’s lives on a daily basis.

I aim to address four incontrovertible facts facing all Christian retailers;

•  The UK is increasingly secularised and less open to Christian forms of spirituality
• Formats, methods and channels – but not the content – are changing almost on a daily basis
• Consumers, and particularly younger people, are not buying as many physical books as before
• The Christian industry – Booksellers and Publishers – is undergoing a serious and prolonged period of retrenchment and rationalisation

I have invited three practising retailers -

• Andrew Lacey, Manager of GLO Bookshop, Motherwell, Scotland
• Melanie Carroll, Owner of Unicorn Tree Books and Crafts, Lincoln
• Steve Mitchell, Retail Director of Wesley Owen

each representing different facets of our trade – to address this question;

• ‘How can our trade best communicate the Good News in an increasingly post ‘bricks and mortar’ era and to a progressively digital generation?

Which of these three images describe and/or sum up today’s Christian book trade;

• Albatross; large seabird, majestic in flight or as in Coleridge, a ‘burden or encumbrance’
• Dodo; flightless bird known only in history; extinct, long gone, utterly dead and finished
• Jewel; beautiful to look at, highly valued. precious to its owner, ‘the jewel in the crown’

A brief trade overview

• The very first UK Christian Bookshop opened in Derby in 1810 – Just over 200 years ago!
• The Derby and Derbyshire Auxiliary of the Religious Tract Society opened this shop in the Cock Pit area of Derby. It then moved to The Strand around 1900 (where it was renamed The Bible and Book Shop) and on to Irongate before finishing up in its present location in Queens Street. Subsequent owners have included; Scripture Union, STL/Wesley Owen and now it is owned and operated by Koorong of Australia.
• Just to add ecumenical balance, the next Christian bookshop was opened in Bristol in 1813 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. SPCK as a society had been established much earlier in 1698 by Dr Thomas Bray, a clergyman. SPCK went on to open their second shop in London in 1836.
• Many commentators would argue that to be a truly national retail chain, you need around 300 to 600 outlets to be represented in the main towns and cities. No Christian operator has ever come close although at one point in the 1990’s there were probably over 600 Christian Bookshops of some shape or size across the UK, but most operated independently.
• Those numbers have dwindled and are dwindling still. There is some evidence of new players entering the market year-on-year but, in my view, numbers of Christian bookshops are consistently down.  I would estimate there are around 220 bookshops in the Christian niche capable of carrying out a viable trade.
• Due to its unique history, Northern Ireland remains the strongest market for Christian product when compared to its population size; this region continues to sell more Christian books per head than anywhere else in the UK. Scottish shops are mostly sited in the major central belt conurbations and there are virtually no Christian bookshops in Wales outside of the Cardiff area.

The ‘Missional’ nature of Christian bookselling

• For the past 30 years I’ve had the privilege of being engaged in the vocation of Christian literature distribution in its various forms. I have been involved as a bookseller, an author, a distributor and a publisher. I retain a fundamental belief in the importance of maintaining a Christian witness on the High Streets of our country. I therefore cannot but help feel that the loss of any Christian shops on the High Street is detrimental and I, for one, mourn the demise of those that have closed.
• Controversially, I have long pondered whether the historical separation of Christian bookshops into a specific subset of the wider book trade will turn out in the longer term to have been a mistake? Would it have been better for our specialist outlets simply to have remained part of the wider general bookselling community as it is elsewhere in the world? To outsiders, our bookshop names must inevitably seem a little twee and out-of-touch. Does such a separation help or hinder our aspirations for engaging in Christian witness?

A quick look at the wider social environment

• The UK is a largely secularised, post-Christian society with a significant multi-cultural population. There is clear anti-Christian bias throughout the media and in politics and militant atheism is on the increase. Christian TV & Radio has very low penetration, making product mass marketing difficult.
• Regular church attendance is in decline in most of the traditional denominations. However, there are bright spots; the Black majority and Hillsong churches are growing. Cathedral attendance is increasing and the Emerging Church movement gaining ground.
• There is a general decline in book readership in society; not just amongst Christians.  Competing media and digital attractions vie for our time and the lack of time affects all of us however much we enjoy buying and reading books

Some thoughts about channels and digitalisation

• The way books are being bought is changing rapidly. An experienced international bookseller said to me only last week that, in over 30 years, he had not known a time of such momentous change as there has been in the past two years. Someone else has described the current upheaval as ‘a perfect storm’.
• There are enormous structural and societal changes taking place. These have been described as being as immense as the transition from parchment to the printing press. Most are outside of our control and are being imposed on us from outside of the trade. It therefore should go without saying that it is foolish to fall out amongst ourselves over changes which are so outside of our control and which are affecting the whole of retail.
• Woolworths, the 45 Borders UK stores and the Irish Bookseller, Hughes & Hughes have all left the UK High Street in the past couple of years. Since Christmas this year, WH Smith bought 22 British Bookshops and Stationers stores, Borders USA entered Chapter 11 – and is effectively bankrupt – and the REDgroup in Australia went bust leaving big UK publisher debts. HMV put their Waterstones chain up for sale selling it for a knock-down £53m in the last few weeks to a Russian tycoon.
• Supermarkets now sell one in every five books purchased and UK Libraries are under massive pressure due to imminent Government spending cuts.
• The issue here is primarily about the explosion of differing routes to market. Print no longer dominates in terms of the delivery of ideas. Content will continue to remain key.
• There are parallels with the development of digital television. More channels = fewer viewers.   In our field, more ‘books’ (however those are defined; print or digital) equals a dispersed customer base which is no longer dependent on the traditional bookseller.
• Due to digital delivery channels, it is easier to self-publish now than at any other time. Blogs and social networks proliferate but some would argue that this only leads to the problem of quantity at the expense of quality.
• Territorial Rights are clearly a problem in the context of a global marketplace. Old-style publishing rights are not always recognised in the internet environment as single copy orders are taken and shipped – often across national boundaries – on a daily basis.
• Paradoxically, more printed books are being published year-on-year in the UK. Book production figures in the USA rose 5% last year despite a huge increase in eBook sales.

Impact of the Internet esp. Amazon, downloads and ePublishing

• Online sales make up 17% of all UK retail spending – and growing.
• Digital downloading is beginning to affect the sale of print items, especially newspapers.
• Book purchasing via the internet is no longer an exception, it is the norm. Amazon recorded their first £10bn sales quarter in early 2011.
• Several eBook Readers are competing for attention and rapidly gaining traction in the market; Sony’s eReader (Waterstones), the iPad (Apple Stores) and Kindle (Amazon).
• There has been an inexorable rise in the sale of eBooks with PA figures showing that eBooks grew to 6% (£180m) of £3.1bn UK book market. This may grow to 10% in 2011.
• Amazon are selling more eBooks than paperbacks; 105 on Kindle to every 100 in print. Four authors have already sold over 1 million eBooks each. Amazon lists 945,000 Kindle generated eBooks. Analysts expect 2011 sales to be $5.4bn in Kindle generated eBooks.
• However, despite these figures, over 90% of sales continue to take place via print. Black and white text books are struggling but print Bibles and Children’s books remain strong sales lines.

Where might all this change be heading? What is the future for our trade?

• Retailing is hard graft for many categories. Shopping habits are changing fast and there is much less time available for those trips to the High Street. When time is found, then competition for time and money is increasingly fierce.  Supermarkets dominate.
• BBPA figures earlier this year show that the quintessential English Public House is closing down at the rate of 30 per week.
• One in seven retail outlets in the UK were surveyed as being empty in September 2010. UK shop leases are the Achilles heel for all retailers. Most are expensive, with ‘upward only’ increases and, if not carefully drawn up, extremely inflexible. Many businesses struggle with high establishment costs and Business Rates for non-charity shops are high.
• Christian bookshops are obviously not immune – and many are having a torrid time. There have been some major shake-ups in the past couple of years, with a lot of shops going and, thankfully, a few coming.  The SPCK meltdown in 2008 and the IBS-STL debacle at the end of 2009 has badly destabilised Christian retail in this country.
• Demographics also conspire against these specialist shops. Church attendance in the traditional denominations is largely declining and newer Churches with their younger audiences, such as Hillsong, are self-contained in terms of their resource requirements.

Final thoughts

• The challenge we face today is to ask, what should the Christian bookshop of the 21^st century look like?  Will it, as an entity, soon cease to exist, lost as an irrelevance in our increasingly secular world or can it be reinvented in an increasingly ‘post-bricks and mortar’ era and for a progressively digital society?
• Although I sincerely wish CLC, Faith Mission and Koorong well in their endeavours, I am no longer convinced of the chain model when it comes to running Christian bookshops. For a variety of reasons, so many major book chains have simply failed over the years. It would appear that, in many cases, their high central costs have acted as the drag on the business and this, in a crisis, hinders rather than helps. Once I would have argued strongly for the efficiencies of scale and the need for central buying that the chain model provides. Now I am no longer so sure.
• In my view, there is still a lot to be said for a very good independent shop operating solely at the local level. Perhaps we’ve just gone full circle?
• In my view, internet retailers can win every time on the basis of price, range and convenience.  If ‘Bricks and Mortar’ booksellers are to succeed in the future, they have to provide that illusive and intangible ‘sense of experience’ to their customers.
• Nick Page has written elsewhere that ‘average’ is no longer good enough.  For a future, these bookshops have to be ‘really good’ and run by people who love books and love selling books. They have to be ‘exciting, memorable, fascinating’, places where events are held and reading encouraged. In short, such a bookshop must have ‘personality’!

A final meditation from 2 Corinthians (NIV);

2:17‘Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God’.

4:1 ‘Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God’.

Eddie Olliffe is Charity Manager at CWR in Farnham, Surrey, UK

OVER THE LAST MONTH or so we seem to have had a plethora of awards in the Christian book trade, so without further ado, congratulations all round to those who’ve won, commiserations to the runners-up, and one or two other congratulatory notes as well because there’s more, much more, to life than winning awards. Rumours of the trade’s demise are a tad premature, methinks…

• Atheist Delusions Wins Michael Ramsey Prize
• Booksellers Association launches new Facebook page
• BRF Author Wins Ultimate Christian Library Book Award
• CRT Awards to CWR, IVP, Salvation Army and Tyndale House (Updated 29/06/2011)
• Hope Centre Official Opening
• Wedding Bells at Dernier Publishing
• SPCK’s Alan Mordue named as ‘Best Overseas Supporting Vendor’

David Bentley Hart receives the Michael Ramsey Prize 2011 from the Archbishop of Canterbury

Atheist Delusions Wins Michael Ramsey Prize

CONGRATULATIONS to David Bentley Hart, shown here receiving the Michael Ramsey Prize 2011 from the Archbishop of Canterbury for his book, Atheist Delusions, Yale University Press.

See the Press Release (27 May 2011) for full details: Winner of £10,000 Theology Prize Announced

Booksellers Association launches new Facebook page

CONGRATULATIONS to the Booksellers Association on the recent launch of their facebook page: you don’t have to be a BA member to like it, and it’s an easy way to keep up to speed with their latest news delivered direct to your facebook feed. You are on facebook, aren’t you??

Brad Lincoln receives the Speaking Volumes 'Ultimate Christian Library Book' Award 2011

BRF Author Wins Ultimate Christian Library Book Award

CONGRATULATIONS to Brad Lincoln, pictured with (left to right) Paula Renouf and Geoff Booker of Speaking Volumes, presenting him and BRF’s Karen Laister with the Ultimate Christian Library Book Award 2011 at CRE Sandown Park on 11 May 2011 for his book, One Dad Encountering God.

More details from BRF: One Dad Encountering God Wins Award!

• More pictures and previous award winners

Christian Resources Together Awards

CONGRATULATIONS to the many and various winners of the numerous awards presented at this month’s Christian Resources Together event at High Leigh. The CRT publicity engine seems to be grinding a little slowly and I’ve yet to receive details of all the winners, but — with a special mention for IVP on a double win, overall Book of the Year for John Stott’s The Radical Disciple and Over 12s Book of the Year for Rachel Gardner’s Cherished — those that have come to my attention so far are:

• Book of the Year: John Stott, The Radical Disciple, IVP
• Christianity Magazine Book of the Year: Howard Webber, Meeting Jesus, The Salvation Army
• Children’s Book of the Year: Su Box and Graham Round, Activity Bible for ages 4 – 7, CWR
• Fiction Book of the Year: Francine Rivers, Her Mother’s Hope, Tyndale House
• Media Product of the Year: C H Spurgeon: The People’s Preacher DVD, CWR
• Over 12s Book of the Year: Rachel Gardner, Cherished, IVP

Double Christian Resources Together Awards 2011 for IVP

The Mayor of Macclesfield snips the ribbon for the Hope Centre's official opening

Hope Centre Official Opening

CONGRATULATIONS to all involved in the recent official opening of Macclesfield’s new Christian bookshop and resource centre, The Hope Centre, who you’ll also find twittering with the rest of us @HopeCentreMacc. With only 6 followers as I post this update, they’re looking kinda lonely so why not head on over there and show them some twitter love? Opening day photo courtesy of Robert Marshall, @rajm: discover more on flickr.

Wedding Bells at Dernier Publishing

VERY SPECIAL CONGRATULATIONS to Janet Evans of Dernier Publishing, due to marry Andrew Wilson on 2 July 2011. Janet writes:

… for those of you who don’t know, I will be marrying Andrew Wilson on 2nd July. After eight years on my own since my first husband died, it is wonderful to have someone to share life with. We met at CRE last year. (I’ve since met another couple who met at CRE!) Andrew is on the staff of a charity that supports those around the world who are persecuted for their faith in Christ. He is also a former journalist, and does some editing and proof-reading for us.

More news from Dernier Publishing coming up next week…

SPCK’s Alan Mordue named as ‘Best Overseas Supporting Vendor’

LAST BUT BY NO MEANS LEAST, CONGRATULATIONS to SPCK Sales Director Alan Mordue, recognised by the USA’s Episcopal Booksellers’ Association award as ‘Best Overseas Supporting Vendor’ for his ongoing work over the last three years, including annual visits to the Religious Booksellers Trade Exhibit and Society of Biblical Literature meetings.

Integrity Music becomes part of the Kingsway family: acquired by David C Cook group on June 1st http://bit.ly/mO2am9—
UKCBD News Reviews (@UKCBD) June 13, 2011

… and a new name for Integrity Media Distribution: Joining The Dots Distribution http://bit.ly/joiningthecots—
UKCBD News Reviews (@UKCBD) June 13, 2011

PAUL SLENNETT, of Southend Christian Bookshop (which celebrated its 40th anniversary last month), has issued a call for the BA Christian Booksellers Group (CBG) and the PA Christian Suppliers Group (CSG) to drop their private agendas at next week’s Christian Resources Together Retailers and Suppliers Retreat at High Leigh and instead hold a joint meeting to discuss the current state of the trade together.

Under the programmed schedule, on the Tuesday morning the CBG and the CSG will be holding meetings simultaneously but separately during the retreat, a situation that Paul sees as a wasted opportunity given the challenges facing the trade. In an email to Steve Briars, Event Organiser, dated 21 May 2011, Paul wrote:

In June, the industry is coming together at High Leigh. Booksellers will sit at the same table as publishers and eat together. That is the way it should be, for we are family. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. Therefore, on the Tuesday, wouldn’t it be good for booksellers and publishers to come together in the same room to share what is on their heart and for that time to be ended with us all praying to Almighty God. At the moment the way the day is scheduled that’s not going to happen. Booksellers will meet in one room, whilst at the same time publishers/suppliers will meet in another room. Why don’t we abandon our own agenda and come together? Next year may be too late! I know for the Christian Booksellers’ Group that may mean delaying our AGM to another day, but wouldn’t that be a price worth paying? Perhaps we could even have our AGM after the conference ends at High Leigh?

Paul’s request, however, has been dismissed by both groups and Steve Briars has replied (email dated 23 May 2011) to say that making use of the High Leigh event as a forum for discussing “deep trade issues” would be neither helpful nor edifying:

I have spoken to Ian Metcalfe of the Christian Suppliers Group and Mark Clifford of the BA-CBG today regarding your email and High Leigh. Like you we all share a deep concern for the challenges that are facing retail shops, publishers and suppliers but feel we would be wrong to change any of the High Leigh programme at this late stage. The event at High Leigh has come about as a need for encouragement for the trade which is reflected in the theme for this year, Renewing Your Passion. Our aim is to equip and empower all those who serve the mission God has called them for and it is therefore important that the High Leigh event fulfils this purpose. I don’t feel on this occasion a discussion on deep trade issues would be edifying and helpful.

But if not now, when? Surely an event such as this is precisely when and where “deep trade” discussions should be held? Last year’s theme for Christian Resources Together was “Stronger Together, Weaker Apart” and over the past year we’ve witnessed the truth of that as the CBG and CSG seem to have simply carried on talking past one another as dozens of bookshops have ceased trading whilst publishers, suppliers and booksellers alike have continued struggling to make ends meet.

Let's Work Together: Ian Metcalfe introduces June's CSG column with reference to the "Christian Publishers and Suppliers Retreat"

The danger of a deep disconnect between publishers/suppliers and booksellers is well illustrated in the current debacle over the new Roman Missal. But perhaps even more telling is Ian Metcalfe’s opening paragraph in his latest CSG column in  Christian Marketplace: entitled “Let’s Work Together”, Ian introduces the column with reference to the High Leigh event as “the Christian Resources Together Publishers and Suppliers Retreat” — can he really have forgotten that this is a trade-wide event, for publishers, suppliers and retailers? Or that Christian Marketplace is also read by booksellers?

No doubt this was a faux pas rather than a deliberate disregard of booksellers; or was it a Freudian slip, symptomatic of the way some publishers and suppliers now tend to view the outlets they once depended on to take their product to market? Only Ian can say, but if you’re a retailer attending the event, why not take this opportunity to give Ian a big friendly wave and remind him that you’re still there, despite the casualties elsewhere?

There will, of course, be plenty of time for retailers and suppliers to meet during the event; and Eddie Olliffe’s workshop on the Monday — “Albatross, Dodo or Jewel: Is there still a place for Christian bookshops to sparkle on the High Street?” — will offer an important opportunity for in-depth discussion of the viability of bricks and mortar retailers; but unless the trade is prepared to seize the day and make this year’s event count rather than allow it to be nothing more than yet another whoop-de-do mountaintop experience after which everyone descends back into their own separate valleys, then a few years down the line Ian’s slip may well be precisely what future retreats will become: CBC RIP?

• Ian Metcalfe: facebook | twitter
• Eddie Olliffe: facebook | twitter

Glenn Myers

SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT over the weekend from Glenn Myers, indie publisher and author at Fizz Books as well as Mission Journalist and Website Editor at WEC International. Glenn has published extensively with Authentic Media, Christian Focus, Scripture Union and WEC Publications, titles ranging from his fresh-out-of-college World Christian Starter Kit through to the more recent Life Lessons (Christian Focus, 2010).

Like so many others, Glenn has been watching the chaos within the Christian book trade over the last few years with some concern; here he reflects on the power and importance of storytelling and wonders whether that’s part of what’s missing from many of our bookshops…

• Discover more of Glenn’s favourites at Glenn’s Good Reads.
• Follow @Glenn_Myers

• Which novels and biographies, as Glenn puts it, make your heart “burn and yearn after God”?
• Do you stock fiction in your shop?
• If not, why not?
• If so, which titles/publishers would you recommend to other booksellers wanting to get started in this area or expand their range?

INTRODUCING AN OPEN LETTER to the Rt Revd Paul Hendricks, Chairman of the Catholic Truth Society’s Board of Management, and to Mr Fergal Martin, the Society’s General Secretary, St Paul’s Bookshop describes Christian booksellers as being “up in arms” over restrictive trade terms on the new Roman Missal, due for publication later this year.

According to the letter, CTS have advised retailers that the new Missal will only be made available at a “non-negotiable” 10% trade discount, terms that completely undermine any viability for bookshops hoping to carry the books and, for those that do decide to stock them anyway, deny them the possibility of supplying church and school customers — many of whom might well be expected to place bulk orders — at a discount.

The letter points out that in placing such restrictive terms on the book, CTS have cornered the marketplace, giving themselves an effective monopoly on sales. CTS themselves stand to benefit enormously from the windfall of being chosen as the Missal’s publisher, but rather than respond in the generous spirit that one might expect — by sharing that windfall with their trade partners to maximise distribution opportunities through other outlets — CTS appear to have opted to capitalise on their good fortune for their own ends.

The letter appeals to Messrs Hendricks and Martin to “initiate immediate discussion and negotiation with the C.T.S. in order that normal supply terms can be established to the book trade.”

The letter has been signed by representatives of over a dozen Christian bookshops around the UK.

• Read the full letter: Forthcoming Altar Missal
• Discussion on the CTS facebook page: New Missal
• CTS on twitter @CTSpublishers