The International Christian Retail Show met June 27-30 in St. Louis. Total convention attendance--including retailers, exhibitors, professional, and internationals--was 4,747, less than a third of that in the peak year of 1999 (with more than 15,000 in attendance) and up only slightly from last year’s 4,744, according to CBA show management. Executive director Curtis Riskey oversaw the convention in his first year as executive director, replacing longtime CBA president-CEO Bill Anderson, who resigned last October.
Riskey said exhibitor numbers were up, though booth space remained the same. He noted that all retail trade shows were down 16% in 2009 as a result of the poor economy. Riskey said CBA currently has 1,000 members; the number of rooftops those members represent was not available at press time. “New members are joining--not new stores, but existing stores,” Riskey said. The Cokesbury chain, with 60 stores, has just joined. New stores continue to open, Riskey said, and he cited 14 attendees at the Prospective Retailers School, which was canceled last year because no one signed up.
Some publishers questioned how long the show might survive; a few debated whether to continue to have a presence on the floor; but most said they will keep exhibiting, even while acknowledging it no longer makes sense in purely financial terms. “We’ll be here as long as the show lasts, but if it goes away it won’t affect our business,” said Dave Lewis, v-p of sales for Baker Publishing Group. The CBA channel now accounts for about 25% of Baker’s sales, and Lewis noted those stores are more costly to do business with in terms of co-op dollars, marketing, and sales reps. But Lewis said it was still an important channel. “They sell a lot of backlist and are more likely to try some of our midlist books than ABA stores are.” He added, “We still need all of the channels.” Lewis said Baker had posted a gain in sales thus far in the fiscal year beginning in May, after seeing a 7% decline in 2009. “We have positive projections for 2010.”
Howard Books/S&S publisher Jonathan Merkh echoed Lewis on the costs of doing business with CBA stores, but affirmed their continuing importance. Howard did not have a presence on the show floor, but did have a hospitality suite, and Merkh was weighing whether to exhibit next year. “I’m trying to figure out whether it’s worth it,” he said. Merkh has been busy solidifying the imprint’s position in the market with high-profile acquisitions like Dave Ramsey (PW Daily, June 17).
The many international attendees were enthusiastic about the show. Anthony Gosling, sales and marketing manager for Scotland’s Christian Focus Publications, said he could see anywhere from 40 to 60 appointments in the short, focused two-and-a-half-day setting, making the trade show “absolutely worth it” as an investment of time and money.
Booksellers were also positive. Gerald Hicks, owner of two Perfect Peace Christian Lifestyle Stores in heartland Wichita, Kans., said he had been attending ICRS for 10 years and planned to keep on coming. On the retail climate more generally, he said he felt “more upbeat” after sales results in his stores for March, April, and May.
The challenge of e-books was on everyone’s mind, and Riskey told RBL that retailers are “looking to CBA to lead the way in helping them find ways of profiting from e-books.” CBA held a Digital Summit on Tuesday morning, featuring representatives from Google and Powell’s. ECPA president Mark Kuyper said his organization was forming a group to work with CBA on the issue. (Watch for in-depth coverage of how Christian publishers and booksellers are dealing with the e-book revolution in the Religion Update special report in PW’s July 26 issue.)
One of the ways CBA is planning to support its members is working with publishers to offer more Christian retail exclusives. The latest is a special offer wrapped around Momology: A Mother’s Guide to Shaping Great Kids (Revell), which is based on 36 years of research by the MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) organization. The CBA-channel exclusive edition offers new content, and buyers get a free membership to MOPS (a $25 value).
CBA is also organizing a Christian Store Day on October 23, which will be co-sponsored by several book and music companies. In addition to promotions and events, the day will feature special products; all profits from those sales will go to disaster relief for Haiti.
Noting the need for improved sales data in the industry, ECPA’s Kuyper said his group had launched a new and improved Pubtrack initiative to gather sales data from publishers. “Publishers will send us data on every SKU that goes out as well as all returns, and we will share channel data, though not data about specific retailers.” (The issue of data gathering and getting a more solid handle on the size of the industry will also be covered in detail in the July 26 PW Religion Update.)
At a show that once featured a host of major publisher events, Hachette’s FaithWords/Center Street imprints mounted the sole evening reception this year. Showcasing what publisher Rolf Zettersten characterized as “an embarrassment of riches,” FaithWords served up hors d’oeuvres and five of its authors to several hundred people at a Monday evening reception that stood out for its scale.
Thriller novelist Ted Dekker (The Bride Collector, Center Street, Apr.) took his time at the podium to explain his background as the son of missionaries and how that has influenced his work, which he characterized as “recasting” Christian truths in a language that will appeal to his readers, 75 % of whom are under 34, and 58% under age 24. Jill Kelly, wife of former Buffalo Bills star quarterback Jim Kelly, also spoke with passion about her son’s terminal condition, the subject of Without a Word: How a Boy’s Unspoken Love Changed Everything(Sept.). Other authors who previewed their books on the publisher’s big fall list: Philip Yancey, What Good Is God? In Search of a Faith That Matters (Oct.); Charles Swindoll, The Church Awakening (Sept.); and David Jeremiah, The Coming Economic Armageddon (Oct.)
