July 14, 2008
christianbookshops.blogspot.com
For the next couple of weeks — the rest of July 2008 — I’ll be posting at christianbookshops.blogspot.com rather than here. We start the ball rolling with a press release from the boys at Delirious: End of an Era for Delirious
This is a temporary relocation so please don’t get stressed: back here next month, all being well.
Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause. All feedback appreciated, as always: thank you.
July 11, 2008
UKCBD > Christian Book Reviews > Fiction > The Shack
The Shack William P Young
ISBN 9780340979495 (0340979496)
Hodder & Stoughton, 2008 (256pp)
£7.99
Category: Fiction
Subcategory: Christian
Reviewed by: Max Turner
Take a man whose life has been destroyed by the abduction and murder of his young daughter. How on earth do you bring such a man into the presence of the God who loves and heals? The surprising answer of this book is to take ‘Mack’ back, in bleak mid-winter, to the remote broken-down mountain shack where the blood of the killing still stains the floor. And then God totally transforms it. Makes it a several-day summer-encounter at the same shack, but now with the social-trinitarian God — after the likeness of the meeting of Abraham with the Three at Mamre (Gen 18), but protracted.
The delightfully searching confrontation with Mack is delicious, theologically mature, and wonderfully refreshing. Here you find social trinity, the self-limiting of God in Christ, the wonder of creation, theodicy and forgiveness, all bundled up in the creative encounters of Mack with ‘God’.
Eugene Peterson (aka the guy that did the Bible translation called The Message) has a front cover endorsement that says “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good”. I don’t know what (who) made me pick it up, but I certainly could not put it down. Best engagement I’ve ever seen between theology and the hurt man on the street.
Max Turner, July 2008
Max Turner is Professor of New Testament Studies at London School of Theology.
Official Website: Contents List, Opening Chapter, Forum and more
Hodder & Stoughton | Order from www.christianbookshops.org
Authors | Categories | Publishers | Reviewers | Titles
July 9, 2008
Independent Booksellers Week may be officially over (in case you missed it, it ran from July 1st to July 8th) but the BA have provided an easy way for us to keep the Love Your Local Bookshop message alive and kicking in the shape of these bespoke environmentally-friendly carrier bags.
The bags are made of 100% unbleached cotton and feature the campaign logo in two colours on one side as shown and can be overprinted on the other side with your own design — such as a shop logo and contact details — in one colour (two if you’re prepared to pay extra) on the other side.
Prices are quite reasonable even for low volume: starting at around £2 per bag at 100 for £180 + VAT but coming down to a touch over £1 each at 1,000 for £860 + VAT. Prices for other quantities are on the order form which can be downloaded (MS Word format) from the campaign website: a great opportunity to promote your shop and demonstrate your green credentials at the same time. Given the weather so far this month it’s just a shame they’re not waterproof…
July 8, 2008
My thanks to Mark Hurley, STL’s Commercial Director, who writes in response to my post about Core Stock back in May. Mark’s original message is dated 23rd May but that message never arrived; it was re-sent on 4th July, received by me today. Presumably it’s out there in orbit somewhere along with the other one thousand billion emails that have gone astray…
Upon my return from Christian Media I read your blog posted on the 19th May-08 regarding ‘Core Stock’ and I understand you have contacted our customer service department inviting a response.
The core stock that is featured within STL Distribution’s monthly guide - The Bulletin - is listed by publisher because the majority of retailers buy by publisher and the Bulletin is an extension of our area sales managers’ activity who also sell by publisher.
Coincidentally at Christian Media this week STL Distribution invited publishers to present new title information by category. This was supported by retail managers from Wesley Owen, Crown and other independent retailers who shared their sales experience of what has and has not worked for them. This will build on the category work that STL Distribution has been developing with tools such as ‘The Bible Catalogue;’ ‘The Best Sellers Catalogue’, where titles are shown by category as well as genre specific see safe stockist schemes, for instance fiction and software, which STL Distribution has been working on with the independent Christian Retailer for over a year. I write this because STL Distribution is keen to continue to produce tools and information that Christian retailers find useful and feedback regarding their usefulness is essential.
However, irrespective of whether data is presented by publisher or category, the source is the same and I welcome your encouragement that more data is supplied to Nielsen Bookscan. To date Nielsen’s database of Christian titles is not as comprehensive as I believe they would like it to be, which is why STL Distribution has and will continue to encourage publishers to supply bibliographic data to Nielsen enabling retailers’ sales data to be captured. I welcome the day when all within our industry believe that Nielsen’s data is comprehensive and adding significant value to buying decisions: until that time STL Distribution’s data is one of the best snapshots of what is happening within our industry.
STL Distribution believes the core stock list it provides supports the Christian retailer increase their stock turn but it is important that this data and any other data available to the Christian retailer is enhanced by their own sales history derived from their electronic stock control system.
Since last autumn, STL Distribution has made available to Christian Retailers its SyneRgi software FREE of charge (RRP £400) plus an £18 monthly support fee, which not only allows a retailer to order electronically from STL Distribution as late as 4pm for a same day despatch but provides a simple but effective stock control system. Why is STL Distribution offering SyneRgi free? As a Christian charity we believe it is imperative that Christian bookshops remain in our cities, towns and villages and remain viable allowing them to continue to impact the local Church and the local community.
Stock management is an essential tool in enabling the mission aspect of a Christian Bookshop to continue supporting profitability, cash flow and showing what is and is not selling.
Phil, you make two requests and one challenge:
The requests:
1. What is selling through Wesley Owen Retail Group?
This data is already available through Nielsen. In speaking with Steve Mitchell, Wesley Owen’s Director Retail of Operation, he states, ‘Wesley Owen submit data to Nielsen on a weekly basis’.
2. Please organise your core stock by category.
I am more than willing to continue down the category route as used for example in our Best Sellers and Bible Catalogues & as used at Christian Media this week. STL Distribution would be willing to make more category data available to retailers if required.
The challenge:
3. If you’re serious about wanting to help us with our stock management rather than simply boosting sales for the publishers you’re highlighting, please offer us core stock on a see-safe basis, at least 50%.
As I have already indicated STL Distribution is offering see-safe on a number of genres. Whist see-safe is a tool STL Distribution uses, in isolation it is not enough and I would want to see a combination of see-safe, linked with proven stock control information. STL Distribution would be more than willing to work with Christian Retailers in helping to setting up a stock control system linked to a core stock programme benefiting all concerned.
With kind regards,
Mark Hurley
Commercial Director
STL Distribution
The core stock that is featured within STL Distribution’s monthly guide - The Bulletin - is listed by publisher because the majority of retailers buy by publisher and the Bulletin is an extension of our area sales managers’ activity who also sell by publisher.
For my own part, the only reason I buy by publisher is because that’s the way your ASMs present their new title info. I organise my shop by category and I’d much rather order by category. Perhaps it’s time to review the way your ASMs work? The rest of the Bulletin is presented by category: why not core stock?
July 7, 2008
Following the dismal failure of SSG to revitalise the Cardiff branch of SPCK, City United Reformed Church have risen to the challenge themselves, joining forces with The Church in Wales to secure funding and draw up business plans for a new shop, scheduled for opening on Tuesday 22nd July 2008.
The Revd Dr Tom Arthur, pastor at City Church since 1988, describes what happened and subsequent developments in a letter published in early June by Mission Connections:
We’d had a book store here at City Church for several years, but it recently closed. SPCK (that’s Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge) had been the resource for the mainline churches. About 15 years ago we took them in when they were no longer able to pay rising city center rents. We saw doing this as an important mission of the church.
The shop here managed to just tick over comfortably, but the SPCK chain as a whole struggled in recent years. About 20 months ago, they basically gave the chain away to a couple of American brothers who formed “St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust” and used the chain to promote the Orthodox communion. Having grown up Presbyterian, they were adult converts to Orthodoxy, and were enthusiastic, as adult converts to anything will be.
Despite their enthusiasm, their idea just didn’t work. Customers weren’t buying the icons which now filled the gift cabinets and the books on Orthodox saints that now filled the shelves just weren’t moving. Sales plummeted, and since suppliers weren’t being paid, they couldn’t get new stock. Last December, when our shop would have expected to take in £18k - £20k, they only took in £3,500. In January, they started closing shops.
Because of customer comments and the concern of denominational leaders, we had already been considering strategies for taking over the shop, as this shop here in Cardiff was the only resource like it for all of Wales. The elders proposed that I and our church secretary, Patrick (that’s “clerk of session” in Presby-speak) should explore our options. So Patrick and I convened a meeting of concerned people from across Cardiff’s ecumenical spectrum, and with the backing of that group we took the project on.
A press release dated 26/06/2008 from the Church in Wales explains further:
The key to success for this enterprise will be our ability to respond to the requirements of the broad, ecumenical church scene in Wales. We’ve sent out over 800 letters to churches from Powys to St David’s, and have received good input in response. We will be carrying everything from rosaries to zipped leather Bible covers, along with books and church supplies. We’re building a website at www.ctbooks.org.uk to publish reviews of what’s new and advertise special promotional offers. A scheme of partner churches will return 5% of purchases by church members to the churches who sign up for the scheme, and we plan special monthly evening opening hours for partner churches.
So a new mainstream ecumenical bookshop for Wales is finally here, thanks to the support of many encouraging voices and the expert advice of so many experienced colleagues. The shop will be open 10am to 5pm Monday - Friday, and 10am to 4pm Saturdays. We hope this shop will make a real difference in strengthening the churches, not just here in Cardiff, but across Wales.
July 4, 2008
UKCBD > Christian Book Reviews > Christian Basics > What am I doing here?
What am I doing here?Hilary Brand (words) and Dave Walker (cartoons)
ISBN 9780715141618 (0715141619)
Church House Publishing, 2008 (74pp)
£4.99
Category: Christian Basics
Reviewed by: Phil Groom
Some books defy classification, so I invented a new one for this: Christian Basics. I’m sure that as time goes by more reviews will be added to that category, but for the moment What am I doing here? is in a class of its own.
And that’s not inappropriate: as Ian Hislop comments on the back cover, “Most books nowadays explain why people don’t go to church any more. It is good to find one that explains why people still do.” A hearty ‘Amen’ to that — whatever that’s supposed to mean. But perhaps that’s too elementary for even a book like this? The word ‘amen’ doesn’t get mentioned in the chapter on prayer (6. Problems and Petitions), nor even in the otherwise very helpful, if somewhat brief, glossary at the back. So, for anyone in this postmodern world of instant chat and email who may be wondering, I like the tale of the little girl who always ended her prayers with, “Click, press send.” Seems to sum it up pretty well to me.
Now apart from the fact that that particular explanation isn’t in the book, I think it does more or less sum up the book’s approach: it’s accessible and it makes few assumptions about how much a reader may know about church and Christian theology. A short preface explains where the book is coming from: Church House Publishing is the publishing division of the Church of England, so “as you might expect, it focuses on C of E style worship” (Preface, p.v), then narrows down specifically to the contemporary Common Worship service of Holy Communion, standard fare for most Anglican churches.
An opening chapter — “What are you doing here?” — explains what the book is and isn’t: it isn’t a handbook to Christian beliefs or in-service rituals, although neither question is completely ignored; it is “about how church services, as you go through them step by step, deal with some of the deepest things about what it means to be human” (p.2). A snapshot of various reasons for going to church is superbly accompanied by one of Dave Walker’s cartoons, which keep popping up periodically to lighten things up.
Subsequent chapters (full contents list below) then take a look at different parts or aspects of the service, explaining concisely why they’re there and what they’re about. Personally I found plenty to disagree with, but that, I think, is an essential part of being Anglican: the freedom to differ; and that, I also think, is what so many of us find so difficult when headbanging bishops like Akinola rant and rave, narrowing things down to an exclusivist club mentality. That emphatically is not what church is about, a point the book picks up on briefly:
One would hope that this should never need to be spelt out — but church is not a secret society for the socially acceptable. Should, God forbid, you find yourself in a church like that, walk away with speed!
Church is for people of any background, all ethnic origins, all physical and mental abilities and disabilities and especially for all ages.
(p.46-7)
To that list I’d add “of whatever gender or orientation” — because whilst a little book like this may not have the capacity to go into a lengthy discussion about inclusivity, issues of human sexuality ought not to be ignored. The tendency to try to hide things, effectively sweeping them under the carpet by remaining silent, is undoubtedly a major contributing factor to the present crises within Anglicanism (for more on this topic, see my review of A Church at War).
Another thing that church is not about, in my view, is telling people what to believe; but that’s evidently not a view shared by many churchgoers, who often seem to project an image that that’s precisely what it’s all about. Again, this is an area the book picks up on, in chapter 5, “Bottom line and benchmark: the need for a basic belief system”, which focuses on saying — or not saying — the creed. Brand says, essentially, don’t worry about it: the creed “is not something to beat yourself up about if you’re not sure” (p.34). I’m with her there. But then she says it is “something to aspire to believe fully” (p.35). No way, Hosea! To me, the creeds are anachronisms, but they’re also anchor points: part of the church’s history, part of our roots, yardsticks for orthodoxy in the age of the metre. For me, saying them is part of a community exercise: I only say them when they’re in the ‘We’ form — “We believe…” — and that, I suggest, is perhaps a more honest approach than pretending that they’re something I “aspire to believe”.
I could say more but then we’d run the risk of a review almost as long as the book itself: far better that you read it for yourself; even better, if you’re a settled churchgoer, buy a few copies and give them to your friends. Because what we have here — for all my personal disagreements — is a real gem of a book: an introduction to church that starts where we are rather than where the church is, and which bids us welcome even when the church itself seems to delight in building obstacle courses.
More Info
C of E Press Release, 26/6/2008
Publisher’s Info Page
Phil Groom, July 2008
Phil Groom is this site’s Webmaster and Reviews Editor. He’s a regular contributor to Christian Marketplace magazine and is the manager of London School of Theology Books & Resources. Any opinions expressed here are personal and should not be taken as representing the views of London School of Theology or of any other group or organisation.
Dave Walker on the book’s launch
Church House Publishing | Order from www.christianbookshops.org
Authors | Categories | Publishers | Reviewers | Titles
July 4, 2008
What better time than Independent Booksellers Week to post this response from Cafédirect’s Claire Dilliway to my earlier piece, 50p off for you and your friends? My apologies to Claire for not posting this sooner: she sent this reply back in May.
Teadirect pickers and the results of their labour. Thank you, Teadirect!
Dear Phil,
Thank you very much for your email and the points that you have raised. I would be happy to discuss this with you in more detail if you wish?
Are you able to accept the coupon in your stores? Either scanned or keyed in and collected, before sending to Valassis?
From my point of view there was no “focus” intended on the supermarkets. It is purely semantics referring to the redemption of coupons - and that some independent retailers are unable to redeem coupons - so we wanted to be clear with consumers where they can 100% definitely redeem, and where they should check beforehand.
This is the first time we’ve done this so is a trial mechanic for us. But hopefully the first of many offers, and digital ones, with the aim of being more targeted in the future - and of course, ensuring that as manystockists and retailers as possible can benefit from the volume drive.
The aim was clarity for the consumer, not preference of the supermarkets - I assure you. I can look to changing the wording on the terms of usage to reflect that more clearly.
Look forward to hearing back,
Best regards,
Claire
Consumer Activation Manager
June 30, 2008
Independent Booksellers Week, the Booksellers Association’s campaign to celebrate independent bookselling, begins tomorrow, Tuesday 1st July 2008, with hundreds of bookshops around the country gearing up for a week of special events including author signing sessions, quiz evening, readings and more.
Shops taking part have been supplied with posters, bookmarks and balloons to help give the week a party atmosphere.
If you’re taking part, please take this opportunity to post details of what’s on at your bookshop; and if you’re a customer please take this opportunity to provide feedback — either here or, even better, in person at your local independent bookshop!
Congratulations to…
Two shops that deserve particular congratulations — although they may not be explicitly taking part in this week’s events — are:
Leicester’s independence is truly music to my ears: my thanks to Revd Peter Hebden for this clarification.
June 26, 2008
A dedicated SPCK/SSG Blog (as previously mentioned here) is now live at spckssg.wordpress.com, set up by exporting all related posts and comments from this blog. Future news and info will be posted there rather than here, with pointers here as appropriate.
The invitation for volunteers to get involved remains open: all you need to do is sign up for a WordPress ID then leave a comment using your sign up email address (this will not be made public) so that you can be set up as an author/contributor. Your WordPress ID doesn’t have to be your real name: pseudonyms are quite acceptable, but I will need to verify your real identity before allowing you to contribute actual posts.
Any SSG/ENC moles who may be reading: I’ll be checking identities quite carefully, so don’t even think about it. Thank you.
Comments are open to all (except spammers, of course, who will be ruthlessly intercepted by Akismet, the WordPress antispam system).
June 25, 2008
is the theme of the next Booksellers Association Small Business Forum for independent booksellers. Advance booking is required but entry is free for BA members.
Meryl Halls, Head of BA Membership Services, writes:
Dear Independent Bookseller,
Online & Active
15th July, Thistle City Hotel, BirminghamI do hope you can join us for the summer SBF meeting on 15th July in Birmingham. This year, we are building on our recent themes of increased professionalism, and running a seminar called Online & Active, which is designed as an independent booksellers’ lowdown on the what, why, where, when and how of websites, online marketing, community-building and lots of other 21st Century stuff.
Our speakers will cover a wide range of topics, including building your own website, online marketing, social networking and using third party suppliers - and there will also be ample opportunity to ask questions and to learn from each other - as is usual and so valuable at Small Business Forum events.
We know that sometimes, booksellers can be baffled by the whole subject of online bookselling and new technologies, e-books and print-on-demand, digitization and blogging; and for those already doing it, there are challenges in keeping up with the latest developments. This seminar should help clarify what the issues are, and what you can do about them. The emphasis is, as always, on practicality and on how other booksellers are doing it. So come along, armed with questions and your own experiences - and have a great day.
There is no doubt this is a huge area to cover, and we are aware that maybe not everyone will have all their questions answered on the day. This seminar is the first of its kind for SBF, and if needed, could be the first of many, if we find booksellers have an appetite for more, and have more topics they want to see covered. Please do fill in the questions section, partly for the “Ask Sridhar!” Session, but partly to let us know if we are covering the right ground, and if there is more to do.
In the meantime, we look forward to seeing you in Birmingham.
Best wishes,
Meryl Halls
Head of Membership Services
• Download the full program (pdf, 175kb)
 | Guy Marshall on Love Your Local Bookshop! |
 | annie on Plans Coming Together for New … |
 | John Duncan on Feedback |
 | John. A. Taylor on Feedback |
 | Jenifer on Feedback |
 | Geoff Wallace on Feedback |
| John Duncan on Core Stock Part 2 |
| Geoff Wallace on The Shack |
| John Duncan on Core Stock Part 2 |
 | Phil Groom on Core Stock Part 2 |
