The mood was relentlessly cheerful at the CBA Advance midwinter gathering in Nashville, held February 1—3. Evangelicalism's time has come, not to mention higher sales for publishers. Much of the buzz on the floor of the convention formerly known as CBA Expo centered around the high profile religion has attained in America. Recent media coverage, like Time magazine's selection of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" in its February 7 issue and a January 24 Newsweek article on Christian retailing, "The Almighty Dollar" (which prompted an unhappy response from CBA on its Web site), were hot topics of conversation. There was also widespread satisfaction over the outcome of Zondervan's dustup with Rolling Stone, which refused to run an ad for the TNIV (Today's New International Version) of the Bible, explaining that it didn't want to promote religion. The magazine relented after being excoriated in the media.
This year, Advance—which has been shrinking in exhibitor space for the past several years—was held in the smaller of Opryland's halls, and show numbers were mixed: though professional attendees were down slightly and there were fewer booth spaces, the number of exhibitors was up a bit. There was a significant increase in the number of buying companies, up to 705 from last year's 589. Asked about the continuing downsizing of the show, CBA media relations representative Nancy Guthrie pointed out that convention business overall is down.
Mirroring what took place in the 1990s for general-interest independent bookstores, store attrition continues to be a problem for Christian retailers. In 2003, there were 244 "unique store" closings; in 2004 there were 288, according to CBA president Bill Anderson. The association currently claims 2,256 member stores (that includes independents and all chain outlets). While attrition has leveled off for ABA independent retailers, Anderson could only speculate about when that will happen in the Christian market. "Maybe this year," he said hopefully.
Meanwhile, as the retailers struggle, the publishers thrive, benefiting from the same factors that are challenging the stores. Christian publishers now sell their books everywhere, and their balance sheets show it: Zondervan has benefited from the Purpose-Driven Life juggernaut. The house was also celebrating signing bestselling novelist Karen Kingsbury to an exclusive, nine-book contract beginning in 2009—a major coup for Zondervan's fiction program. Thomas Nelson just released results showing growth of 8% on the top line and 18% on the bottom line. Two-and-half-year-old Integrity Publishers doubled its sales in 2004 over 2003, with no increase in title output, and had two books hit the general-market bestseller lists. Warner Faith, now in its fourth year, has its first general-market bestseller with Joel Osteen's Your Best Life Now.
Despite the challenges they face, retailers who spoke to PW were largely positive. First-timer Deb Welpman of Tree of Life in Independence, Mo., noted that the economy seemed much stronger this year than last, and said her store was blooming, even with local competition from B&N, Wal-Mart, Target and other Christian retailers. Other retailers applauded the show's new format. Susan Chipman, proprietor of a church bookstore, Next Step Resources in Granger, Ind., likes the Tuesday evening kickoff. "You can go then to get a head start," she said on Wednesday. Chipman said she wants to stock only products that will be top sellers, so she appreciated the many devotional events and concerts throughout the week, which helped her identify new authors with potential, like Angela Thomas (Nelson) and David Crowder (NavPress).
For its part, CBA continues to retool itself to remain relevant in the changing market. For years CBA has sought to distance itself from the bookstore label, retaining the acronym but insisting that it was no longer strictly the Christian Booksellers Association. Many Christian stores average only about 25% of their inventory in books, making up the difference with music, apparel and gift and decor items. This summer, the organization's efforts in that direction will be reinforced with a renaming of the larger summer show (July 10—14 in Denver), now called the International Christian Retail Show. It is also a full day shorter, and exhibitors can set up on Sunday, rather than having to set up on Saturday and kill time until the floor opens on Monday.
The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, under the leadership of new president Mark Kuyper, had a new look at the show. Though the organization had a booth, it was populated only by a couple of tables and some chairs. Kuyper explained, "We didn't feel it was necessary for us to ship a display and staff the booth. Instead, we've been free to roam around and meet with people." Kuyper cited the central change at ECPA as "being multichannel-focused. We want to help each retail channel be successful, but we are not abandoning Christian stores. We'll do everything we can to help them succeed."
In big news for ECPA members, plans have been finalized for them to move into Hall 8 at Frankfurt this year, after several years of being isolated from the rest of the English-language publishers.
