July 2, 2011

News Roundup: 4th July is UK Independents’ Day | Cambridge Bibles publish first English Language flipback® | and much, much more…

Posted by Phil Groom under Bookshop Ramblings | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Holiday time...

Holiday time...

JULY ALREADY: the sun is shining, Wimbledon is over for Andy Murray, and the holiday season is upon us, oh yes, but there’s still plenty happening in and around the Christian book trade. Don’t forget to shout out with your news if you’d like to be included in the next news roundup… and if you’d like to keep up to speed with the news as it emerges, follow the UKCBD twitter feed:

Independents' Day: Your High Street Needs You! Click through for more info and poster download options...

Independents' Day: Your High Street Needs You! Click through for more info and poster download options...

4th July is UK Independents’ Day

ARE YOU READY? Have you put a poster up? If not, now’s the time to grab one because Monday 4th July is Independents’ Day — atrocious wordplay but a superb initiative from Skillsmart Retail to try to bring some footfall back to the UK’s indie retailers. Anne Seaman, Skillsmart Retail’s Chief Executive, explains the thinking behind the campaign:

We are delighted to lead this campaign and support small retailers. Raising awareness amongst the public is one of the biggest challenges smaller retailers face and our message is about encouraging the public to use their local high street and understand how important a diverse retail sector is.

It’s also essential that local retailers understand that to compete today they need to be top of their game. The time for sitting back has passed and action is required: Your high street needs you!

Find out more and get involved:


h/t Amanda Taylor, Cambridge Bibles

Cambridge Bibles publish first English Language flipback®

The Transetto Bible

The Transetto Bible

CONGRATULATIONS to Cambridge Bibles on becoming the publisher of the first English language flipback®, the Transetto: a new, ultra-compact edition of the King James Version Bible that breaks with tradition by opening vertically rather than horizontally. Published, of course, with the much-publicised 400th KJV Anniversary in mind, the Transetto is available in special trade packs of nine copies plus one free if you request the POS display tower: orders via Lion Hudson.

For those who are beginning to feel that they’ve already seen more editions of the KJV this year than their sanity can handle, don’t panic: more English language flipbacks have just emerged hot off the press from Hodder:

Christian Marketplace news roundup

The latest Christian Marketplace news roundup is out, along with a report detailing all the Christian Resources Together 2011 Award Winners: Stott wins Book of the Year award. Congratulations especially to CLC London and Quench Maidenhead, Large and Small Retailers of the Year respectively.

From Mental Illness to Christian Bookshop Owner: Paul Slennett’s Story

PAUL SLENNETT’S REMARKABLE STORY has made local headlines in the Yellow Advertiser, Bookseller marks 40 years in the business:

A BOOKSHOP owner celebrated 40 years in the business with a message of hope.
Paul Slennett, who runs Christian bookshops in Southend, Chelmsford and Brentwood, said: “I put my trust in God and he helped me turn my life around. He can do the same for anyone.”
The 64-year-old has come a long way from the youngster who ended up in a psychiatric ward, confused and depressed.
Now, as well as the shops, Mr Slennett is behind the Jesus is Alive Mission, which supports overseas aid work, is an author and happily married with four grown-up children who all work with charities.
He said: “I was troubled as a child and teenager. But that all changed when I was in the mental hospital.
“God came to me and said he would be my father and guide, as long as I did what he asked.
“I have done that, and have had a fantastic life as a result.”
After he was made redundant from a job at a ships’ chandlers ‘which was taking up far too much of my time’, God told Mr Slennett that he wanted him to open a Christian bookshop in Southend…

IVP Summer Reading Sale Now On!

IVP’S SUMMER SALE has started, with up to 50% trade discount off selected biography and fiction titles from 1st July to 31st August. To qualify, place an initial order for any mix of 20 or more of the offer titles: download the trade flyer (pdf) for details.

Living Oasis Update: Julie Jowett leaves Harrogate for Spain; and Liverpool plans September Opening

El Palmeral

Mike and Julie Jowett at El Palmeral

IT’S NOT ONLY farewell to Nottingham and Worthing today, but also farewell to Julie Jowett, who has now left Living Oasis Harrogate and her role as the company’s National Sales Manager for what looks very much like a real oasis as she joins her husband at El Palmeral, a retreat/guest house for the over-25s in Spain, tried and tested by none other than Mike Norbury. Congratulations, Julie, and very best wishes for the new venture.

Meanwhile Living Oasis Liverpool have posted photos of the shop’s interior on facebook, announced a proposed opening date of some time in September and now have their own dedicated website, livingoasisliverpool.co.uk. At present they’re still facing £20k budget deficit but remain optimistic and are advertising for investors to help meet the shortfall:

We need to raise just 20,000 pounds more and we have the finance to complete phase 1. If you would like to contribute please contact the store.

There’s optimism and there’s optimism, however: the who we are page describes the shop as being “one of a growing, national chain of stores” — an interesting claim, given the last 6 months of store closures; but unlike the stores that have closed, Liverpool does seem to have solid backing from the local Christian community:

The Liverpool store has its own steering group, chaired by Baptist Regional Minister Revd. Phil Jump and comprises representatives from NCT, local churches, representatives of groups and organisations already working in the city centre, and local Christians with a business background

Here’s to September and beyond!

The Accidental Pilgrim

The Accidental Pilgrim

Maggi Dawn on the move

CONGRATULATIONS to Maggi Dawn, author of a number of books — latest, The Accidental Pilgrim, due out in July — who is on the move to pastures new in the USA to take up an appointment as Dean of Marquand Chapel and Associate Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School.

Hope they allow you plenty of time for your writing, Maggi!

Scam Warning from Sovereign World

PAUL STANIER of Sovereign World tells me that they had a close call with a scammer, but forewarned was forearmed and they avoided the pitfall. Paul writes:

I wondered if you could use your blog to warn Christian publishers and the trade in general over a scam that was successfully used against another Christian company and has been tried against Sovereign World (which failed, as we were pre-warned).

They use card details to pay for books, which appear to be authorised when processed (but it actually later fails in transaction at the bank end, as the card is usually reported stolen). You think you have their trust, so when they ask you to pay for their shipping cost via Western Union to the shipping company that they allocate (their shipping company won’t accept cards) it seems legitimate. The buyer pays for the shipping to you via card, and you then think you are safe to pay on the buyers behalf the shipping company via Western Union. But no… you are not safe because the credit card payment never makes it to your account, and you pay a stranger about £1500 (not a legit shipping company) to Western Union, which is not traceable. They take the Western Union money, disappear and your card payments don’t go through… You lose £1500.

I am wanting to warn the Christian trade, as they appear to be targeting us.

Social Media Update: Look who’s tweeting (and more)

A BRIEF SNAPSHOT: if you haven’t already found them, you can now:

Last but not least: don’t miss the Quench Bookshops blog: a superb example of a Christian bookshop using WordPress.

Twitter, Facebook, Issuu and WordPress are all free services — if you’re not using them to engage with your customers and boost your shop’s online profile, it’s time to get up to speed. If you don’t understand why, pay a visit to Vicky Beeching’s new blog, CyberSoul. For more and more people, the supposed distinction between the “real” and “virtual” worlds is becoming an increasingly false dichotomy — head on over there today and join the conversation where spirituality meets technology … or collides with it, as the case may be…

 

June 6, 2011

Let’s Talk: Call for Christian Booksellers and Suppliers to drop private agendas at High Leigh

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(or as well…).

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"

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?

 

June 30, 2010

Kingsway and the Frightening Art of Stone Throwing: a Response to Paul Slennett

Posted by Phil Groom under Christian Music | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
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IF YOU’RE ON Paul Slennett’s emailing list you’ll no doubt have received a copy of his recent comment about the Kingsway polls, but you may be scratching your head and wondering where that comment is. You’ll find it directly on the polls themselves:

  1. Is Kingsway’s practice of comparing their own prices to their own RRPs in order to present things at a discount fair?
  2. Is a meeting in London on July 21st the best way forward for this discussion?

Paul writes:

“If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone”

I believe God is speaking to us through the words of Jesus about the tower of Siloam:

4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

If we gave a contemporary application to these verses, it could read like this:

Do you think that Kingsway are more guilty than us booksellers? I tell you, no! But unless we repent we too will be judged. In the same way, do we think that the Christian bookshops and STL that had to close last year are more guilty than the rest of us? I tell you, no, but unless we repent we too will all perish.

It’s an important point that Paul raises and I take this opportunity to thank him for doing so. I have replied (on both polls, since Paul left his comment on both polls) as follows:

Hi Paul and thanks for your observations.

I have no interest in throwing stones: the last thing I want to see is Kingsway destroyed. On the contrary, it’s because I want to see Kingsway thrive and excel that I am highlighting this issue. I and several others raised these questions with Kingsway privately long before they were raised in public, but Kingsway failed to address the issue constructively.

As followers of Christ do we not have a duty of care towards our brothers and sisters in the faith to challenge them when they go astray? Do we not have a responsibility to highlight hypocrisy when we see it? Is this not what you now believe yourself to be doing in challenging my challenge to Kingsway?

You are right: we all need to examine ourselves. I am painfully aware of Jesus’ teaching about those with logs in their eyes attempting to remove splinters from others’ — but does that teaching take away our responsibilities towards one another? Should we remain silent when we see the “Tower of Siloam” about to collapse on our neighbours’ heads?

The tower may have collapsed on the old STL — but does that mean we should stand back and allow another tower to collapse on Kingsway? Should we not rather be there amidst the rubble helping dig the survivors out?

If you haven’t done so, Paul, please go read my post In Defence of Kingsway: I say again what I essentially said there: Kingsway are not the enemy. I want to continue trading with them and I want to continue supplying their product to my customers — but they need to work with me, with all of us, to make that possible.

I expanded on why I believe it’s important to speak out on issues such as this on my personal blog a few weeks ago in a post entitled Seek ye the good. There seems to be a tendency in some Christian circles to think that we should always and only adopt a lovey dovey sugar’n'sweet niceness in our dealings with each other: we should never criticise, never call one another out for fear of being like those people who dragged that woman — who was undoubtedly guilty, scripture does not pretend otherwise — before Jesus. Let’s face it, who wants to be on the receiving end of that sort of comment from Jesus: Let the one without sin cast the first stone.

But there are important differences in this scenario: those people who dragged the woman before Jesus were out to test him, if possible to bring him down; and if the truth be known I suspect they didn’t care one whit about the woman or her ‘sin’ — if she died as a result of that confrontation, tough. She was nothing but an object to her accusers, a conveniently weak and defenceless person who they could use to trap the prophet who threatened the status quo.

In our scenario, we have Kingsway, a giant of the Christian publishing world, a company so large that by John Paculabo’s own admission, if STL’s prospective buyers had got wind of the fact that Kingsway were considering withdrawing from their STL distribution agreement then those buyers might well have had second thoughts about taking on the business; almost certainly, a significantly lower price would have been secured for the deal: Kingsway, a company that prides itself in its work to alleviate poverty through the Ray of Hope Amazon River Kids project and now in its support of issues of justice and mercy in its promotion of the Micah Challenge.

No: no weak damsel here betrayed by the very men to whom she had turned for what may have been her only way to make a living. Instead, the situation is turned upside-down and back-to-front: we who look up to Kingsway as a company to lead the way, who look up to John Paculabo as a man who we honoured at CBC 2007 with the Angus Hudson Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding service within and beyond our trade, who look up to Kingsway as a trading partner enabling us to make a living — we find ourselves betrayed over a simple matter of trade justice that requires nothing more than an executive decision to put right.

And so, with this woman, we kneel at Jesus’ feet … guilty as charged: making a living from selling Kingsway product. Kingsway have the power to take that trade away from us, to deliver it direct to our customers themselves — but now they are caught in the very act of that delivery, like a rabbit in the glare of a car’s headlights … and as Jesus sweeps his gaze across our trade, I wonder what he sees?

He bends down and writes something in the sand. Siloam’s tower teeters on the edge of another collapse. Who will shout a warning? Who will pick up the pieces? How can I remain silent?

 

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