Please use this page if you would like to:
- Make comments or offer suggestions that don’t relate to a specific page (every page has a ‘Leave a Reply’ box at the bottom for comments about that page).
- Submit a Book Review — please see the Review Guidelines for some simple advice on how to write a review… and please remember to include the author, title and publisher (even better if you include the ISBN!).
- Write about your local Christian Bookshop: What’s best about them? What’s worst? Were they helpful? What’s the coffee like? Would you go there again or recommend the shop to a friend? If not why not?
- Tell other visitors about your Christian Bookshop shopping experiences.
If your comments refer to a particular shop, please remember to include the shop name and location with your comments. Thank you.
April 25, 2008 at 5:11 pm
It was good to be at the AGM of the BA- Christian Booksellers Group last Tuesday. Thanks to Phil for his write-up of the meeting and Mark Clifford for chairing - as well as being re-elected Chairman of the Group. Thanks as well to John, Sam and Ruth and congratulations to Melanie Tucker from Church House Bookshop for being willing to be elected onto the Committee.
The Christian bookshop in St Albans has recently moved to new premises. We are now in the city centre, in a ‘high street’ location, close to the Cathedral and in what is known as the ‘Cathedral Quarter’.
Please note that the St Andrew’s Bookshop is now at 20 Holywell Hill, St Albans, Herts, AL1 1DD
The interesting thing is that we are sharing the shop with the St Albans Music Centre and this working out well. Many of the customers spend at both side of the shop, making us a one-stop shop for books and music. The Music centre is a specialist shop in sheet music and have customers who visit from many miles around.
At CBC in 2008 A. Guy Taylor made a plea for Christian bookshops to keep their shops open on the ‘high street’ and wanted to start a campaign to get people to support their local Christian bookshop. At St andrew’s in St Albans we are making our stand in this direction. However, the Booksellers Association have launched a campaign to support independent bookshops called ‘Love your Local Bookshop’. This is a campaign that will benefit Christian bookshops who get on board with it. There is free publicity material and the local bookshop can adapt it to suit their own needs and local situation. Conatct Meryl Halls at the BA for more details.
April 25, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Thanks for this, Guy - I’ve now added Independent Booksellers Week to the What’s On page, and will update your shop’s entry over the weekend; apologies for the delay!
May 2, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Hi I dont know whether you remember me but I was at CBC last year and I asked at end of the seminar if you would help me to understand my Mac when I brought one, is the offer still open
May 2, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Hi Rosemary - I seem to remember one or two conversations with various people about Macs. Quite happy to offer what help I can as and when time permits… all depends on what sort of help you’re looking for, of course: Apple’s support pages are probably the best place to start — Switch 101 gives all sorts of advice on switching from PC to Mac, for instance; and don’t miss the discussion forums, where you can share your experiences with other Mac users…
You may also find Doug Chaplin’s Switching to a Mac pages helpful…
July 15, 2008 at 11:06 am
Hi Phil
Here’s a possible one for your blog.
We have customers asking us for the Poverty and Justice Bible published by the Bible Society at £12.99. However, Bible Society won’t sell it to us because they can only sell it to individual customers and not to the trade. They say that Harper Collins hold the copyright for the CEV text. Sam at Harper Collins says “Hi Geoff, this is a bible society product and we have them special dispensation to create it using our material. We are trying to find a way to get this into the Christian trade through stl but currently the margin won’t work for any of us. But I will keep you informed of progress. Sam.”
However, Bible Society are now offering it at £9.99 so there must be some margin in it somewhere.
The annoying thing is that the Bible looks really good and innovative and I am sure would sell really well and highlight issues that Christians need to face.
What do other shops think?
Geoff
July 17, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Hi,
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July 18, 2008 at 9:20 am
I have recently had published my book, ‘The Path to Martyrdom’, the life story of the Tudor martyr Anne Askewe(Ayscough). It is the first book I have written. A synopsis etc. may be viewed on the Goldstar website. I am trying to find ways of publicising it and wondered if you might be interested in including details of it on your blog. It is a detailed insight into the struggle of women in Tudor society and particularly those wtih protestant views.
July 18, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I have been asked about the Poverty and Justice bible on one occasion a few months ago - the customer didn’t actually want to order it so I had a look for it and found it on Bible Society website but didn’t follow it up. I think it would be a bible I would very much like to stock and I hope HC get their finger out.
On this kind of subject, I am very concerned that Church Times are not making available the new teenage girl’s magazine Caris to the trade at all. I have been asked for this by several customers but have been told by CT that this is their policy because they cannot fund it. Since CT offer subscritions to their magazine at less than half price at Greenbelt, and have recently been giving away entire print runs free of charge, I find this ridiculous.
As well as this, Church Times will not give me terms to stock the Church Times itself which I can afford to take advantage of - I stocked CT for six months recently and made a £35 loss over the period. I cannot find anyone at the paper who will talk sense to me. Is anyone else in this situation?