The Christian Booksellers Association International Convention met July 13—18 at the new Anaheim (Calif.) Convention Center. The center, which opened in April, offered convention-goers broad aisles and spacious common areas and, with most convention hotels located across the street, it made for a convenient venue. "We could have sold more space this year," CBA president Bill Anderson told PW. "But that would have meant expanding into a fourth hall, and we felt staying in three helped the pace of the show." He added, "In taking the heart rate of the industry, I expected a more somber feel, but people are upbeat, even in the face of current challenges."
This year, on the advice of trade show consultant Steve Miller, CBA created a new category, "professional attendee," to bring its attendance counts in line with more typical trade show practice. "Those are attendees who actually have buying power," Anderson said. There were 4,628 of them this year. Applying the same criterion for last year, there were 6,166 professional attendees; for the previous year, there were 4,590. "Last year was a spike caused by the Atlanta Gift Show [which opened immediately after CBA]," Anderson said. Exhibitor numbers this year were 496 vs. 515 last year. At the close of the convention, there were 13,129 registered attendees, fewer than last year's attendance of 14,239. International attendance continues to grow, with 1,039 representatives from 50 countries, compared to last year's 863 from 56 countries.
Anderson told PW that CBA added 17 new stores to its membership rolls this year, for a total of 2,443. He noted that member stores have seen modest gains or flat sales; some have seen sales decline. The 2002 convention marked the completion of Impact×2, an initiative launched five years ago to multiply "ministry impact" by doubling sales through Christian retail stores by the year 2002. The initiative nearly achieved its goal: the average Christian retail store saw sales growth of 47% over the five years.
Elegant Events, Debuts
Although it was a tough fiscal year for Thomas Nelson Inc. (News, May 27), "the Nelson Book division experienced 22% growth and is on track to do that again," v-p and associate publisher Jonathon Merkh told PW. Among Nelson Book's new initiatives in the past several months are the launch of WND Books (News, June 3) and a concerted effort to nurture the next generation of star authors, according to Michael Hyatt, who has been promoted to executive v-p and group publisher, overseeing Nelson Books, WND, Tommy Nelson, Rutledge Hill and Cool Springs Press. (David Moberg continues to supervise W Publishing and J. Countryman, while Phil Stoner oversees Bibles and electronic reference.) Among the new authors Nelson brought to the show was Erwin Raphael McManus (Seizing Your Divine Moment, Oct.), college professor, futurist and pastor of a multiethnic, arts-focused congregation in downtown L.A. called Mosaic. Nelson hosted two glittering events, a Monday night dinner at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Dana Point for its Nelson Books and J. Countryman divisions, and a Wednesday evening dinner cruise for its W Publishing unit. Other high-profile evening events included two movie premieres, for Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (ZonderKidz publishes the VeggieTales line) and Joshua, based on the novel by Joseph Girzone (Doubleday).
A Sunday luncheon hosted by Doubleday and its WaterBrook unit to honor Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, authors of Prisoners of Hope, was the first major public event for Michelle Rapkin in her new role as v-p and publishing director of Doubleday Religious. Also making her debut in a new role was Marilyn Moore, who hosted the annual Guideposts dinner and celebrated her appointment as editor-in-chief of Guidepost Books and Inspirational Media. It was a homecoming of sorts for Moore, who was books editor at Guideposts from 1978—1985. Former Guideposts editor-in-chief Brigitte Weeks presided over the Crossings party; she took over as editorial director for that Bookspan club after Rapkin moved to Doubleday.
The Third Annual Christy Awards enjoyed record attendance at its Friday evening banquet. The night belonged to Bethany House, which took home five of the eight awards for evangelical Christian fiction. Bethany also captured the most coveted prize—the award in contemporary fiction went A Garden to Keep, Jamie Langston Turner's literary treatment of the aftermath of marital infidelity.
Multnomah dominated the romance category, taking all four nominations, and the award went to Dee Henderson for The Guardian. WaterBrook also scored for T. Davis Bunn's thriller Drummer in the Dark (Suspense), while Broadman & Holman won in the Western category with Stephen Bly's The Long Trail Home.
At the ECPA Gold Medallions dinner the following night, no single publisher dominated, although Tyndale took home four and W Publishing three of the night's 20 bookseller-nominated awards in various categories. In an unprecedented twist, the night's top award—the Charles "Kip" Jordon Christian Book of the Year—went to the same book that won last year: The Prayer of Jabez.
Convention Controversy
Jabez author Bruce Wilkinson was the keynote speaker for the Gold Medallions, but his speech—an extemporaneous homily loosely themed around the "Great Commission" of the New Testament—ended in controversy. Wilkinson invited publishers to come forward in front of their peers and re-commit their lives to the Great Commission, which tells Christians to "make disciples of all nations." A small number did so, but many more publishers stayed in their seats. Some spectators complained to PW that Wilkinson's exhortations for U.S. publishers to do more for Christians in the Third World made it sound like the various houses were doing nothing, when, in fact, a number of them already have extensive operations to bring books to other nations, often at considerable cost to the publishers. Many also felt that Wilkinson's focus on his own book and its phenomenal sales record showed a lack of humility. By far, however, publishers' censure focused on the "altar call," which some of those present characterized as "an inappropriate use of power," "manipulative" and even "offensive." InterVarsity Press sales and marketing director Jeff Crosby said, "Wilkinson called it the most historic moment in 25 years of Gold Medallions, but the real historic moment was when Lillian Miao led us in prayer before dinner with such grace and humility." Miao, CEO of Paraclete Press, is ECPA's first female chair.
Commenting on the uproar over Wilkinson's speech, ECPA president Doug Ross said, "That room was filled with people who are doing something around the world. Some people were deeply offended, and I'm going to do what it takes to salvage the situation. We've never done that kind of invitation before, and we'll never allow it to happen again." At CBA's Impact×2 Awards banquet, Ross was presented with the Individual Innovator of the Year Award for his efforts to improve efficiency, technology use and trading-partner collaboration through ECPA's INDIE 600 program.
iBelieve Is Back
One of the convention's most talked-about events was a press conference announcing that a consortium of evangelical businessmen called Jabez Networks has purchased the iBelieve.com brand from Family Christian Stores and plans to revive the defunct Web site with a new subscription-based model. Family launched iBelieve as an e-commerce and ad-supported site in January 2000 and folded it nine months later. The partners in Jabez Networks also own Rivals.com, a subscription-based sports network. In the press conference, a panel of Jabez partners—who are financing the site with their own money—said they would succeed by "keeping the [capital] burn rate low" and providing content that was "exclusive and compelling" enough to secure subscriptions, in what they called a "proven business model." Family will continue to provide marketing and e-commerce support. The retirement of FCS CEO Les Dietzman was announced just before the convention; his successor, Dave Browne, formerly CEO of Lenscrafters, was on hand to begin learning about the industry.
Other business news included the acquisition of Honor Books and River-Oak Publishing by Cook Communications from Eagle Communications for an undisclosed amount. Honor publishes devotional and gift books, as well as children's books under the Honor Kids imprint, which will be absorbed into Cook's Faith Kidz imprint. RiverOak will become Cook's combined fiction brand. This past spring Eagle sold its Albury Publishing unit to Bethany House.
Another deal PW heard about at CBA was Warner Faith's acquisition of the entire backlist of popular author and international TV and radio personality Joyce Meyer from her current publisher, Harrison House, and Meyer herself—more than 75 copyrights in all. Warner's deal with Meyer also includes several future works, the first of which will be published early next year.
New Adventures
Also announcing a new venture at the show was veteran gift producer Blue Mountain Arts. The company has published gift books since the 1970s, but used CBA as the launching pad for its new general trade imprint, Rabbit's Foot Press. Blue Mountain, which plans to have as many as 50 book reps on the road by October, "has been in a major learning mode," according to director Helene Steinbuck. "Everything is different in the book business—different discounts, different margins, different techniques. It's been hard for us to shift gears." The first Rabbit's Foot Press titles are due in August.
At the show with his first list was Byron Williamson, industry veteran and now president and CEO of Integrity Publishers, a launch backed by CBA giant Integrity Music and announced at last year's convention. With his first books set to ship the week of July 21, Williamson was promoting God @ Ground Zero by Ray Guinta with Lynda Rutledge Stephenson, for which the company already has racked up prepub sales of 80,000 units; it will get front-of-store placement at Barnes & Noble and Waldenbooks. God Will Make a Way by Henry Cloud and John Townsend is part of the overall God Will Make a Way Lifesystem, being promoted via a 30-minute Time/Life infomercial. Said Williamson, "We are interested in helping many kinds of people experience God through our books, and we are aiming for 40% of them to go to the general market."
Steeple Hill Books, a division of Harlequin, celebrated its fifth anniversary by announcing a new program in women's fiction. Editorial coordinator Tracy Farrell said the line will be published in trade paper, and will be "general inspirational fiction that is directed to women, encompassing all of the types of fiction we see in the CBA today—women's issue books, historical, romance, mysteries and other categories."
One publisher trying something completely different at the show was Wiley's Jossey-Bass, which reported success selling nonreligion titles to Christian bookstores. "We've done really well with our new Betty Crocker's Cookbook and with the Ernst & Young and J.K. Lasser tax guides," said editor Mark Kerr.
Next year's 52nd annual CBA International Convention will be held in Orlando, Fla., July 12—17.
