Christian Retailing now offers a new and exclusive best-sellers list from Nielsen BookScan. The list will be available both online and in our print and digital magazines.

The list covers sales from a wide range of retail outlets, including Family Christian Stores, Walmart, Amazon and independent Christian retailers, giving a bigger picture of what titles are selling.

Christian author Max Lucado has reached another milestone in his career—30 years of published work. HarperCollins Christian Publishing celebrated the occasion with Lucado at a breakfast event in his honor. He spoke to more than 100 company employees in the Nashville offices at an employee chapel service.

Lucado began his writing career with the release of On the Anvil (Tyndale House Publishers) in 1985. Since then has published 31 additional trade books. His unique storytelling style has also led to the publication of numerous fiction, children’s and gift books. His books have landed on best-seller lists such as The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, ECPA and CBA. He’s sold more than 120 million products around the world in more than 50 languages. Lucado’s newest title, Glory Days: Living Your Promised Land Life Now (Thomas Nelson), released in October.

Religious book sales in June 2015 rose 12 percent relative to June 2014, but overall year-to-date sales still trailed 2014 by more than 5 percent, according to statistics from the Association of American Publishers (AAP). Overall, publishers’ book sales for the first half of the year (January-June 2015) were down 4.1 percent at $5.58 billion, compared to $5.82 billion for the first six months in 2014.

Compared to June 2014, June 2015 demonstrated increased sales of religious hardbacks (20.2 percent), paperbacks (1.7 percent) and “other” books (33.4 percent). Religious e-book sales notably declined during this month, posting a 20.8 year-over-year decline.

A federal bankruptcy judge has set the bid deadline for a live auction of Gospel Light’s assets. All bids must be submitted on or before Oct. 23 at 2 p.m. PST. Sales from the auction are expected to repay Gospel Light’s debtors.

The Ventura, California-based curriculum and book publisher declared bankruptcy Aug. 7. Last June, Baker Publishing Group took over Gospel Light's Regal Books trade division. Henrietta Mears founded Gospel Light in 1933 and has a long history of serving the needs of the church.

Award-winning author, blogger and speaker Lisa M. Hendey has joined Ave Maria Press as editor-at-large.

In her new role, Hendey will acquire books in all areas of Catholic life and spirituality. She will help authors shape and develop book proposals and guide them through the publishing process. Hendey also will continue to write books for the company and serve as editor of the catholicmom.com book series.

John Ortberg’s Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You has sold more than 100,000 copies since its April 2014 release.

Standard Publishing continues to reap the success of its Standard Lesson Commentary, the nation's best-selling annual Bible commentary. The 2015-2016 King James Version (KJV) edition topped CBA’s best-selling books list. The 2015-2016 KJV Large Print Standard Lesson Commentary followed closely at No. 3, along with the 2015-2016 New International Version (NIV) edition at No. 13 and the 2015-2016 NIV Large Print commentary at No. 21. The list is based on sales in U.S. Christian retail stores through Aug. 31.

The KJV Standard Lesson Commentary has appeared on the CBA best-sellers list upon its release each year for over 25 years.