Parable Group has reached a three-year milestone with its online display advertising service by delivering more than 85 million impressions for advertisers to reach the faith and family market.

"We are constantly staying in tune with today's emerging technology with online and mobile display advertising," said Parable founder and CEO Steve Potratz. "We've been helping advertisers of all sizes leverage online display advertising easily and effectively to reach, engage, convert customers and grow their business."

Due to the service's growth, Parable will be expanding its online display advertising to include search and social media networks in the upcoming year. Both are under development and in beta-testing.

The service allows advertisers to promote products and services with targeted marketing across thousands of premium Internet sites, Christian websites and mobile devices. Ads are behaviorally targeted and marketed to Christian audiences, and advertisers can choose to target locally, regionally or nationally.

"Making online display advertising available and accessible at an affordable price helps round out our digital solution for small clients and large national brands we serve," said Tom Dolman, sales and marketing specialist for Parable. "Our algorithms assess every ad opportunity within our network of 87,000 websites. We optimize campaigns multiple times per hour, meaning we maintain full control over even the smallest budgets."

Online display advertising campaigns have been developed for numerous companies, including Harvest House Publishers, Image Books, Howard Books, Zondervan, Thomas Nelson, Worthy Publishing, Tyndale House Publishers and David C Cook.

Visit http://www.parablegroup.com/tag/display-advertising/ for more information.

Reema Goode's Which None Can Shut: Remarkable True Stories of God's Miraculous Work in the Muslim World (Tyndale House Publishers) bumped Sarah Young's Jesus Calling (Thomas Nelson) from atop the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) General best-sellers list for the week ending June 22, according to Pubtrack Christian data. The hardcover edition of Jesus Calling has ranked No. 1 on the General best-sellers list for most of the year.

The rest of the top 20 ECPA General best-sellers were: 2. Jesus Calling; 3. Prayer, Philip Yancey (Zondervan); 4. The Real Win, Colt McCoy (Multnomah Books); 5. Not a Fan, Kyle Idleman (Zondervan); 6. Jesus Calling, Young, large print deluxe (Thomas Nelson); 7. Heaven Is for Real, Todd Burpo (Thomas Nelson); 8. The Necessity of an Enemy, Ron Carpenter Jr. (WaterBrook Press); 9. Happy, Happy, Happy, Phil Robertson (Howard Books); 10. Jesus Today, Young, hardcover (Thomas Nelson); 11. Jesus Calling, Young, deluxe (Thomas Nelson); 12. The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman (Northfield Publishing/Moody Publishers); 13. The Duck Commander Family, Willie and Korie Robertson (Howard Books); 14. Jesus Calling, Young, women's edition (Thomas Nelson); 15. 7 Men, Eric Metaxas (Thomas Nelson); 16. The Circle Maker, Mark Batterson (Zondervan); 17. The Harbinger, Jonathan Cahn (FrontLine/Charisma House Book Group); 18. Unglued, Lysa TerKeurst (Zondervan); 19. One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp (Zondervan); and 20. The New How to Study Your Bible, Kay Arthur, David Arthur, Pete De Lacy (Harvest House Publishers).

The Top 10 Fiction best-sellers were: 1. The Harbinger; 2. The Guardian, "Home to Hickory Hollow" No. 3, Beverly Lewis (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group); 3. Sovereign, "Books of Mortals " No. 3, Ted Dekker, Tosca Lee (FaithWords); 4. The Breakthrough, "Precinct 11" No. 3, Jerry B. Jenkins (Tyndale); 5. Full Disclosure, Dee Henderson (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group); 6. Band of Sisters, Cathy Gohlke (Tyndale); 7. The Chance, Karen Kingsbury (Howard Books); 8. Truth-Stained Lies, "Moonlighter" No. 1, Terri Blackstock (Zondervan); 9. Borders of the Heart, Chris Fabry (Tyndale); and 10. Blowing on Dandelions, "Love Blossoms in Oregon" No. 1, Miralee Ferrell (David C Cook).

The top five Bibles were: 1. The Story, NIV, deluxe, hardcover, New International Version (Zondervan); 2. KJV Gift Bible, blue leatherflex, King James Version (Hendrickson Publishers); 3. NIV Adventure Bible, hardcover (Zonderkidz); 4. NASB Large Print Pew Bible, black, hardcover, New American Standard Bible (Foundation Publications); and 5. NIV Celebrate Recovery Bible, softcover (Zondervan).

Olympic gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas was honored twice Sunday night during the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Douglas—author of Grace, Gold and Glory (Zondervan), which debuted on the New York Times best-seller list in December—won Subway Sportswoman of the Year and the Youngstars Award. She thanked BET for "just for embracing me after Olympics," the Associated Press reported.

Sister duo Mary Mary won Best Gospel Artist of the Year for the third time.

Kirk Franklin and Tamela Mann performed during the awards, established in 2001 to celebrate African-Americans and other minorities in music, acting, sports and entertainment.

See a complete listing of the winners at www.bet.com/shows/bet-awards.

Parents are preparing their back-to-school budgets with caution, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF).

Based on the group's recent survey conducted by BIGinsight, nearly77% of families with school-aged children say the economy will affect their spending plans.

"While this is down slightly from the 80% this time last year, it's clear that these consumers still feel the pressure," NRF said.

Other findings of the survey included: one-quarter of families with students in grades K-12 (25.7%, up from 23.5% last year) will ask their children to reuse last year's school supplies to cut back on expenses; and more parents will compare prices online to seek out deals (18.4% versus 16.8% last year).

The survey found parents will also use coupons (36.7%) and purchase generic products (36.9%) for school items. Parents also said that they are compensating for the impact of the economy by cutting back on extracurricular activities (12.7%) and choosing whether their child goes to public or private schools (6.6%).

NRF's 2013 Back-to-School/College surveys will be released in mid-July.

Spring Arbor sales rep Mary Lou Alexander coached a room full of International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) attendees during a training session titled "Thinking about Opening a Church Bookstore."

Designed for those who are planning to open a church bookstore, the session offered advice about which products to carry, where to get them, when to order and reorder, how to merchandise the store and how to process the stock. Attendees also learned about Spring Arbor’s Recommended Model Inventory (RMI) program.

Bertelsmann and Pearson have finalized the merger of Random House and Penguin Group, their respective book publishing companies.

Last October, the publishers announced their plan to unite the two houses. Joining Penguin and Random House was thought to help the merged company gain more traction in the digital book market.

Under terms of the deal, Bertelsmann owns 53% and Pearson 47% of the new Penguin Random House (PRH) company, which will control more than 30% of all trade book publishing. The WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group is part of Random House.

The world headquarters of PRH will be in New York City. The new company will employ more than 10,000 people worldwide and publish 15,000-plus titles annually across 250 imprints, while generating annual revenues of approximately $3.9 billion, PRH officials said.

Markus Dohle, previously chairman and CEO of Random House since June 2008, will serve as CEO of PRH. John Makinson, who has headed the Penguin Group since 2002, will serve as the company's chairman of the board.

"We are uniting two of the world's leading book publishers, with complementary skills and strengths, both with outstanding creative and commercial track records, with a passion for publishing the best book ... in the best interests of the readers—who will benefit from the quality and enormous variety of books we will publish," Dohle said.

Bertelsmann Chairman and CEO Thomas Rabe added: "Bertelsmann and Pearson have set a great course for the future of the book and book publishing—and new growth for Bertelsmann. Together, we can and will invest on a much larger scale than separately in diverse content, author development and support, the publishing talent, the entire spectrum of physical and digital book acquisitions, production, marketing and distribution, and also in fast-growing markets of the future.

"We are strengthening one of our core businesses by pooling resources, pursuing joint expansion and a greater reach," Rabe continued. "We are accelerating the transformation to digital and leveraging the entire range of possibilities it offers. We also are promoting regional growth, especially in the emerging markets of China, India and Brazil."

PRH will be comprised of all of Random House and Penguin Group's publishing divisions and imprints in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, New Zealand and India, as well as Random House's publishers in Spain and Latin America, and Penguin's trade publishing activity in Asia and South Africa.

InterVarsity Press (IVP) and Thomas Nelson were honored with two Books of the Year awards each by the Association of Logos Bookstores, presented during the International Christian Retail Show in St. Louis.

IVP won in the Christianity/Culture category for A Free People's Suicide by Os Guinness and in Spirituality, Devotional with Pursuing God's Will Together by Ruth Haley Barton.

Nelson won in the Youth category for Grace for the Moment by Max Lucado and in Christian Living with Love Does by Bob Goff.

Other winners included Ann Spangler for Author of the Year; Baker Publishing Group for Vendor of the Year; Jesus the King by Timothy Keller (Riverhead/Penguin Group) in Theology, Doctrine, Reference; Damascus Countdown by Joel C. Rosenberg (Tyndale House Publishers) in Fiction; and Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing by Sally Lloyd-Jones (Zonderkidz) in Children's Picture Books.

Additionally, Logos honored 24 sales representatives for their service to stores.

"We consider it a privilege each year to acknowledge, encourage and thank these other participants in our shared mission in Christian retailing," said Becky Gorczyca, Logos' executive director.

Since 1974, the Kent, Ohio-based nonprofitt Association of Logos Bookstores has served independent Christian bookstores in the U.S., Canada and the Bahamas.