Delineating Sub-Genres in Your Music Department

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post:

Where to put things?  For example are mass choirs a subset of choral music or urban gospel (black gospel)?  At the very minimum, books are displayed spine-out, but CD spines are harder to find, and in flip-bins, a small subsection of music can easily be missed.  Make sure your staff know how to find these:

• Bluegrass Music — This should be distinct from country gospel or southern gospel
• Wedding Music — Usually found among the soundtracks, but what do you do with the samplers containing a variety of tracks, including the Wedding March?
• Celtic — A tricky genre that almost always involves some cross-filing, since the group Iona (which we still get asked for) belongs in contemporary, but many of the generic Celtic music aligns better with the traditional and worship sections.
• Chants and Liturgical — Tracked more in stores which are responding to a distinct Catholic market; but for stores that don’t, you should be able to locate the Taizé and John Michael Talbot quickly.
• Mass Choir — There’s a disconnect here between people who ask where the section is and people who actually buy.  We found the word “gospel” resonated more with our staff, so it ended up as subset of southern gospel, which objectively would be my last choice. Probably better in urban or a choir section if you have one.
• Budget samplers — Anything under $4 really belongs at the checkout. You’re trying to introduce non-music customers to new artists, not lose a sale within the music department itself.
• Music parody — Really there’s just Apologetix and most people would ask for them by name.  Are they still doing new albums?
• World Music and Jazz — You probably don’t have enough of anything to form a section, but if you do, staff should know who and where they are in the store.
• Local artists — Music you’ve taken in on consignment from local bands and artists deserves to be featured within its proper style, not placed in some independent ghetto.  If it’s rock, put it in rock.  If it’s worship, put it in worship. They probably left you a quantity so just put them face out where people can find them. True, they’re taking up space where you’d rather display things you actually own, but hopefully you negotiated a decent margin.
• ‘Tween music — Hate to say it, but in our store it’s a subsection of the children’s department, which is physically as far removed from the rock/contemporary section as possible. Ideally, it would be located in contemporary, but we’re really full there, and the parents are more comfortable when it is still part of the kids section.

What specialty music sections are unique to your store?

Cook Aims First-Time Fiction Author to Reach Wide Market

With two kids books behind her, Julie Cantrell decided to take a run at romantic fiction.  Publisher David C. Cook is hoping to reach the widest possible market with Into The Free and on Wednesday, USAToday rewarded those efforts with a substantial interview with the  editor, farmer, teacher and author.   Read the interview at USAToday Books

Delineating Sub-Genres in Your Book Department

In a store like ours which is seriously over-crowded, locating the right books in a timely way is critical.  So we have segregated some titles which are tagged with a small shelf-talker to highlight their content.

For example, our Family section has four major shelf divisions:

• Men
• Women
• Marriage
• Parenting

But then there are two shelves of special-interest and special-issues including:

• blended families and step-parenting
• single parenting
• adoption
• financial issues
• addictions
• sexuality
• singles issues
• separation, divorce and remarriage
• special issues with daughters, sons
• seniors, extended families
• children’s faith questions
• family issues
• technology
• bullying, school issues
• abuse
• considering home schooling

In our ministry section, in addition to books of interest to pastors, commentaries, etc.,we offer

• comparative religions
• comparative denominations
• women in ministry *
• church history
• classic authors**
• church planting
• ministering to postmoderns
• emerging church
• next generation writers
• Zondervan Counterpoints series***

*  Started last year as a temporary section when one church was doing an exhaustive study on this issue.
**You must be dead several years to get in this category, but C. S. Lewis survives in the Christian Living section. 
***3-5 viewpoints on a single issue, not tagged since the books stand out on their own

In our apologetics section we offer

• general apologetics
• reliability of scripture/Bible translation issues
• Bible and science (which itself has various unstated viewpoints)
• basic Bible overviews
• sharing your faith

With an army of part-time employees, it’s important that everyone is able to find everything.

Do you have little niche sections of your store that are fairly active?

Grocery stores are generally the best at highlighting items you might have missed; click the image to learn more

Toronto Store Closing Brings Total to Eight; LA Retailer Bucking The Trend

While Christian stores continue to struggle, the record of store closings in Toronto in just a little over three years shows that the general market is equally hurting.  John Goddard’s article in the Business section of The Toronto Star focused on the closing of one of the five Book City locations, but also contained this sidebar showing the recent casualties within the city limits:

2012 – Books for Business, off Bay St. on Adelaide St. W., in the financial district; The Book Mark, on Bloor St. W. in Etobicoke; [and Book City in Bloor West Village];

2011 – The Flying Dragon, children’s bookstore, Leaside.

2010 – This Ain’t the Rosedale Library.

2009 – Pages Books, Queen St. W.; David Mirvish Books, Markham St.; McNally Robinson Booksellers, Don Mills.

The article went on to describe the Book City closing:

“Physical retail stores for media — books, music and video — are becoming increasingly unviable,” owner Sean Neville said.

Book City’s decision to close one of its five locations coincides with the company’s move to expand its product line at the remaining stores, Donker said.

“We need stores that have enough square footage for us to be able to add something new without hurting our selection of books,” he said. “We’re looking for a few things to take over for the small decline that’s happened because of ebooks, online sales, that type of thing.”

The 1,000 square feet or so at the Bloor West Village location offered too little room to accommodate expanded inventory, which so far includes greeting cards and toys, he said.

But before we become too hasty, there’s this story about an entrepreneur who is swimming against the tide:

In the past few decades, the publishing industry has gone through drastic changes: large chain bookstores have pushed out independent bookstores, and now digital book retailers and ebooks have pushed out the chains.

But Josh Spencer is turning back the clock. A former online book seller, Spencer now owns a 10,000-square-foot used bookstore in downtown Los Angeles, aptly named The Last Bookstore.

On the corner of 5th and Spring streets, The Last Bookstore is a book-lover’s paradise with a large cavernous space, a hushed atmosphere, comfy couches, and, of course, rows and rows of books. Formerly a bank that opened in 1915, the building boasts tall columns and antique furnishings that give the space a nostalgic air, while murals and sculptures – one made completely of books suspended on wires – add a more modern feel. The store also features a section of used records and a small coffee bar.

Spencer, who sold books online for the last 12 years, said he was approached in 2006 about creating a physical bookstore in downtown LA. Three years later, Spencer opened a small store on Main St. and soon had more books than the few shelves would hold. Spencer and his employees found the current space and opened the store in June.

…continue reading this story at World California…

If it’s true that trends move from west to east, The Last Bookstore might not be last after all.

Monday Marketing Musing

I know the people at Kregel are trying to market this Bible study to women…

The letter of 1 Peter was heard by women who knew times like these. This newest addition to the Sue Edwards Inductive Bible Study series digs into 1 Peter and takes a look at the stories of real women–past and present–to teach today’s woman how to stand faithful to God regardless of her trials, however severe.

Women today need Bible study to keep balanced, focused, and Christ-centered in their busy worlds. The study questions in this guide allow readers to choose the study level that fits their lifestyle. To provide even more flexibility, readers may pick a different level each week, depending on their schedule. Whatever level of study they choose, women will find fresh solutions and hope to help them overcome obstacles so they can experience victory when discouragement takes hold.

…but I still find the cover somewhat disturbing.  Seriously, how many women in the study group can live up to the image the cover photo projects?  And how does the red-blooded American male pastor who was simply collecting study guides on I Peter explain this choice to his wife? 

“No, really honey; you look better than her.”

Lifeway to Continue Carrying NIV2011 Bible Version

Profit over principle? 

Lifeway’s trustees have decided to go against the recommendation of their parent denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, and continue merchandising and selling the 2011 revision of the New International Version of the Bible published by Zondervan. But the USAToday story, excerpted below, says the chain “won’t endorse it;” which is a throwback to a controversy a few years ago where the company placed consumer advisory warning stickers on some products of which it did not ‘officially’ approve.

The comedic value of this, “We’ll sell it to you, but we don’t approve of it” policy is, like the policy itself, without limits. Lifeway could bring in just about anything in print, CD or DVD without having to sanction it; which means it could make forays into the wider ABA book market or carry CDs or DVDs which its customers enjoy and are buying elsewhere, without compromising principles.

But does a warning notice or sticker on the product exempt the company from those principles?

Here’s the story from USAToday:

Complaints that the New International Version of the Bible (NIV) is inaccurate and too gender-inclusive are not going to stop one of the world’s largest Christian resource producers from selling it.

That translation was criticized at the 2011 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Phoenix. Church representatives there approved a resolution asking Nashville-based LifeWay Christian Resources — owned by the denomination — to take it off its shelves.

Critics said the translation, which was updated in 2011, is filled with errors when it comes to language about gender, using “brothers and sisters” instead of “brothers” and “they” instead of “he” for a single pronoun. That kind of approach undermines the authority of the Bible, they said.

LifeWay’s trustees disagreed.

After having a committee review the 2011 NIV, they voted unanimously this week to keep selling it, while making clear they don’t endorse it…

…That decision disappointed the Rev. Tim Overton of Halteman Village Baptist Church in Muncie, Ind. Overton wrote the resolution against the NIV that passed in Phoenix.

His resolution initially was rejected by the committee that vets resolutions before they are presented at the annual meeting. But he brought it to a floor vote, where it was approved.

Overton, like many other Southern Baptists, believes in verbal plenary inspiration — the idea that every word of the original texts of the Bible comes from God. Adding words to a translation undermines that belief, he said.

“If it says ‘brother’ and you say ‘brothers and sisters,’ you are adding to the Scriptures,” he said.

Marty King, spokesman for LifeWay, said a committee of trustees reviewed the NIV to decide whether it was acceptable. Under Southern Baptist rules, he said, they were not required to comply with the resolution, and representatives at the annual meeting had inaccurate information about the translation.

“People thought this Bible used female language for God,” he said. “It does not. We think that messengers* voted without accurate information.”

…continue reading here…

*insider term for delegates to the SBC convention

A Beka: Another Segment of Christian Publishing Not Part of Christian Retail

The A Beka home school curriculum is sold exclusively through Pensacola Christian College.  Unlike the various home school publishers available through STL, American Christian bookstores don’t get a piece of the action.  But how much action are we talking about?

…Pensacola Christian [College] officials decline to release sales figures. But they say that A Beka Book proceeds have paid for the college’s $300 million in construction plus $2 million a year in student scholarships.

The Internal Revenue Service took away A Beka Book’s tax-exempt status five years ago. The college paid undisclosed millions in back taxes.

Jason Short, general manager of Green Leaf Christian Books in Baltimore, said the Christian textbook market has boomed recently as Christian school and home-schooling enrollment has grown. His business has gone up 25 percent each of the past three years.

Green Leaf doesn’t offer A Beka books, because the college sells them exclusively. But, Short said, “A Beka Book is very well thought of. A lot of the home-schoolers ask for them.”

Read the entire story at Pensacola News Journal.

Bloomberg Businessweek: Amazon Wants to Burn the Book Business

The headline really says it all, but the story, at five online pages, is worth reading from beginning to end.  It covers the early beginnings of the company and then focuses on the company’s plans to enter into publishing its own titles.

HT: The Author’s Guild via Thomas Nelson Indies on Facebook

STL Database More Nuisance Than Help

Do you ever alert your suppliers when their database contains an error?  I do, on a regular basis.  And some companies, like Ingram, generally appreciate the corrections.

But for a month now, I’ve been trying to get STL to correct the listing for the CD by Rachel Chan, daughter of author and pastor Francis Chan.

They list her has Rachel Chan Wacholder.  Rachel Wacholder is actually a well-known U.S. women’s volleyball player.  I’m sure Rachel Chan enjoys a good game of volleyball also, but they aren’t the same person. 

Not sure why I bother.

Today it was B. J. Hoff.  Her Song Weaver book is listed as Song Weavwe.

Something called “Retail Bag Small Christmas” sells for $59.00, but is that for 100? 200? 500?  STL has a don’t ask don’t tell policy on that one; it’s never been fixed.

Author Susan Sorensen is still unfixed as Susan Sorenson; the former is more Scandinavian, so someone in her family probably cares.

Also unfixed is James Garlow’s Miracles are for Real, which appears next to the title When Heaven Touches Earth. The book image and the title disagree so you’re left to toss a coin as to which came first and which applies today.

And Francine Rivers’ And The Shofar Blew gets shortened to Shofar Blew, though I’ll admit computer geeks have a problem with words like “and” and “the” messing up searches.  The guy that explained to me kept using the term “boolean,” but it didn’t help.  But changing the title of Francine’s book doesn’t help much either.

I don’t strike out all the time.  Dave Ramsey’s Entreleadership is no longer listed as Untitled, though with that title, I’m not sure he’s further ahead.  And Bill Meyers two books are now gone, because he’s really Bill Myers.  And there are no longer 87 products listed with author annotation “Na Na.”  (I didn’t look for “Hey Hey” or “Kiss Him Goodbye.”) And My First Read and Learn Book of Prayers is no correctly assigned to Scholastic instead of HarperCollins, but Harper still gets the incorrect publisher credit for My First Read and Learn Book of Bible Stories. 

In fairness, database corrections are contracted out and apparently get fixed overnight.  Real time updates can be costly for suppliers who keep secured data locked during the business day and it’s more efficient to do everything at once.  But having to look up more than 50% of titles on other sites and then copy and paste the ISBNs is frustrating as well as time-consuming.

Anyway, I can’t seem to help Rachel Chan.  Any suggestions?

What’s the strangest thing you’ve come across in a supplier database?

Grammy Winners in Christian Categories

Winners listed in red

BEST CCM ALBUM

• Ghosts Upon The Earth – Gungor
• Leaving Eden – Brandon Heath
• The Great Awakening – Leeland
• What if We were Real – Mandissa
• Black and White – Royal Tailor
• And if Our God is For Us – Chris Tomlin

BEST GOSPEL ALBUM

• The Love Album – Kim Burrell
• The Journey – Andrae Crouch
• Hello Fear – Kirk Franklin
• Something Big – Mary Mary
• Angel & Chanelle Deluxe Ed – Trin-I-Tee 5.7

BEST CCM MUSIC SONG

• I Love the Way You Hold Me (Jamie Grace, Tobymac, Christopher Stevens)
• I Lift My Hands (Louis Giglio, Matt Maher, Chris Tomlin)
• Your Love (Brandon Heath, Jason Ingram)
• Blessings  (Laura Story)
• Strong Enough (Matthew West)

BEST CCM PERFORMANCE

• Do Everything – Steven Curtis Chapman
• Alive – Natalie Grant
• Your Love – Brandon Heath
• Jesus – Le’Andria Johnson
• I Lift My Hands – Chris Tomlin

I didn’t list the category for Gospel song, which Kirk Franklin also won.

So who is Le’Andria Johnson?  Beats me.  Certainly can’t say I’ve heard this song on either U.S. or Canadian Christian radio.  Here’s the video, but the audio in it is very messed up, unless that’s intentional. These days it’s hard to tell. She has three releases listed at Ingram, two different versions of “The Awakening of Le’Andria Johnson,” and a budget priced “The Evolution of Le’Andria Johnson.” The Grammy Awards have a history of giving out at least one award in the gospel category that leaves retailers scratching their heads.

The televised award ceremony also noted the passing of Jessy Dixon.

All 78 winners listed at Grammy.com

In the Digital Age, How Do People Find Out About Books?

How do people discover books in the digital age? The answer might surprise you.

According to a recent survey, presented at the Digital Book World conference in New York last week, nearly half of readers discover new books through the recommendations of family and friends, and nearly a third discover them at bookstores…

So begins an article at DigitalBookWorld.com which links you to a video featuring Jack McKeown, president and co-owner of Books & Books Westhampton Beach, presenting the results of a survey by New York-based advertising agency Verso Digital of readers on discoverability, book-buying, pricing and much more.

I found the article at somersault.posterous.com, which reported the stats look something like this:

• 49% – Family and friends’ recommendations

• 30% – Bookstore staff recommendations

• 24% – Online and print advertising

In other words, while buying channels may be changing, awareness — what they refer to as discovery — is coming through traditional channels.

Blog Encore: A Bookstore Owner’s Prayer

From the archives; exactly one year ago:

Dear God,

When we started out it all seemed so easy. You opened doors and directed our paths. We saw Your hand in everything in those early days. We have our victory stories.

But now it’s different. Changing market conditions and rising costs are closing in on us. We’re stretched in so many ways. We have to work so much harder for the same results. Like soldiers in a battle, we grow weary and discouraged as we watch fellow-soldiers falling all around us. We’re pained and hurting from those who were once closest to us — local church staff — who no longer support our stores with their church purchasing; bulk sales we really need to make everything else possible.

Yes, we’re still reaching people. There’s nothing like the feeling that comes with selling a child or a teenager their first Bible. Or a middle-aged person who is connecting with You for the first time. There’s nothing like being there for someone in the middle of a life crisis, to offer a resource, or just to say, “We’ll remember you in prayer.” (And then to remember!) There’s nothing like helping a young worship leader locate that song they heard on the radio, or having a greeting card that puts perfectly into words the hope and encouragement someone wishes to offer.

But it’s getting harder and harder. We keep saying, “The ministry side only happens when the business side is viable.” These days, the financial side of things just isn’t happening.

God, we need wisdom. Lots of it. Probably a lot more than other people in retail. We need a sense of Your direction for our lives as we seek to respond to an ever-changing landscape. We also need assurance, encouragement, confirmation. We need to find favour with our suppliers, our landlords, various levels of government, local churches and parachurch organizations, and even a renewed sense of common purpose with our employees. We need opportunities to help out other bookstores who are struggling, and interactions with other stores who might be able to help us out.

We also need revival. As individuals. As local communities. As the Church as a whole in North America. We know that if people hunger and thirst after You, they will also hunger and thirst to read the Bible, to study the scriptures, to reach out to their friends and neighbours and co-workers, to fill their homes with Christian music and Christian literature.

So many Christian radio stations, television stations, websites, megachurches, books being published; so why do those of us who have taken Christian resources to the marketplace struggle so much right now?

We face a time when people are apathetic about reading which converges with a time when people are spiritually apathetic. We need people to once again learn to love the word and to love The Word.

God, renew our passion for You first, and then, secondly for the things of You. Help us to find the means and the methods to lift your name in the middle of a hurting world. Keep us from buying products that do not truly exalt You. Keep us from being caught up in enthusiasm and emotion and purchasing things our local customers neither need nor want. Help us to have what it is that broken people are searching for at the time they most require it.

Help us to continue to show Your love in the part of the world where You have placed us. Help us to be gracious when our closest friends and Church staff don’t support us. Help us to do our best to place the book and music items we have into homes and families.

Lord, we don’t deserve Your blessing. But we humbly ask You to be merciful to us as we face unprecedented challenges.

For the honour of Your name and the building of Your Kingdom, we pray;

Amen.

Thomas Nelson Fiction Titles Pricing Higher

With $15.99 U.S. now established as the new normal for fiction titles at Thomas Nelson, it’s a good time to sit down and review pricing theory.

One of the basic laws of economics is that “the price is the highest the traffic will bear.”  In other words, there is curve, much like the supply and demand curves you studied in high school economics, that represents the price of an item and what customers are willing to pay for it, and you set that price as high as possible without pushing the curve to the point where sales start to diminish.

But you also have to ask yourself, “Why do this. when the United States is still rife with unemployment and economic uncertainty?”

The answer is simple: Raising pricing is a coward’s way out of not being able to create and sell more products.  The shareholders want to see increased revenues and if you aren’t attracting good authors (not the case here) or are losing some of your top authors to other publishing houses (definitely the case here) you simply do anything you can to achieve the bottom line necessary to satisfy hungry investors.

Still, I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the boardroom when this price move goes down.  Does anyone put up their hand and say, “I’m not so sure this is the right time to be doing this?” or does everybody simply nod and think about their next pay increase and how it’s going to help the payments on the outdoor hot tub?

Cynical? Frankly, I think someone needs to be skeptical of the decision-making process.  People in wholesale and product development are not above you, the lowly retailer. Trash that myth. There is no chain of command.  You are — for the remaining time being — a necessarily part of the system.

And that’s precisely why publishers can’t wait until you go away forever.

Furthermore, they know that, moving forward, in a world of online vendors and big box discounters, most copies of any given title will not be sold at, for example, $15.99.  So if they set the “list price” artificially high, they can make radical discounting look even more radical; though they still have to pay the author royalty based on $15.99; but using 10% of retail as the royalty, the price increase from $14.99 to $15.99 is costing them ten cents a copy.

Solution for brick-and-mortar retailers?  If you would have normally bought ten copies buy three.  If you were thinking of twenty-five, order ten.

And give your wholehearted support to publishers who are keeping prices reasonable.

Keeping Books Straight on Your Shelves

from TYWKIWDBI (click image) via 22 Words

Graf-Martin Providing Fulfillment for Campolo DVD Curriculum

A company that normally finds itself in the book marketing and promotion business is going the extra mile to help a relief and development organization that normally doesn’t have a product to sell to Canadian Christian retailers.

Red Letters – we couldn’t resist adding the color — is a six-week DVD study featuring Tony Campolo as he endeavors, in his unique and compelling style, to draw viewers’ focus to the teachings of Jesus Christ, particularly in regard to social issues.

Graf-Martin Communications  is fulfilling orders to bookstores on behalf of World Vision Canada Church Relations division, while the charity itself is doing their own distribution directly to churches and denominations which represent the bulk of their sales.  The church video editions are co-sponsored with certain denominations in Canada with a special customization that they are giving to their congregations.

The DVD with six (approx. 10-15 min) segments and a 32 page personal interaction guide will retail in stores at $29.99.  Enjoy a 4 1/2 minute preview:

The Red Letters DVD Conversations:
1.    What is Red Letter Christianity?
2.    About Materialism
3.    About Compassion
4.    About Politics
5.    About Spirituality
6.    About Joy

New Peretti Title Releasing Through Howard Publishing

Frank Peretti’s newest title releases March 6th in hardcover from Howard, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.  If you’re new to the business, Peretti’s This Present Darkness was groundbreaking Christian fiction when it released in the mid 1980s, and opened up the Christian suspense genre the way Janette Oke pioneered (pun intended) the Christian historical romance genre.

Here’s the publisher info:

Dane and Mandy, a popular magic act for forty years, are tragically separated by a car wreck that claims Mandy’s life–or so everyone thinks. Even as Dane mourns and tries to rebuild his life without her, Mandy, supposedly dead, awakes in the present as the nineteen-year-old she was in 1970. Distraught and disoriented in what to her is the future, she is confined to a mental ward until she discovers a magical ability to pass invisibly through time and space to escape. Alone in a strange world, she uses her mysterious powers to eke out a living, performing magic on the streets and in a quaint coffee shop. Hoping to discover an exciting new talent, Dane ventures into the coffee shop and is transfixed by the magic he sees, illusions that even he, a seasoned professional, cannot explain.

But more than anything, he is emotionally devastated by this teenager who has never met him, doesn’t know him, is certainly not in love with him, but is in every respect identical to the young beauty he first met and married some forty years earlier. They begin a furtive relationship as mentor and protege, but even as Dane tries to sort out who she really is and she tries to understand why she is drawn to him, they are watched by secretive interests who not only possess the answers to Mandy’s powers and misplacement in time but also the roguish ability to decide what will become of her.

Frank Peretti has crafted a rich, rewarding story of love and life, loss and restoration, full of twists and mystery. Exceptionally well written, Illusion will soon prove another Peretti classic.