| 'Flattening' of Christian product sales |
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| Written by Christine D. Johnson | |
| Thursday, 23 December 2010 10:53 AM America/New_York | |
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Some attribute the dip to a glut of products, while others say the industry is struggling to interpret the desires of young Christians who “have grown skeptical of what they see as a commercialized, isolating version of faith,” said the newspaper. Stan Jantz, a marketing consultant and author who ran a chain of Christian retail stores for 25 years, told the Post: "This is a generation that doesn't necessarily want a store that segregates Christian from non-Christian products." Headlined “Religious retailers do a bit of soul-searching this Christmas,” the article noted that thousands of Christian bookstores that were “long the backbone of the religious retail industry” have closed in the past decade, leaving the industry “in a state of ... soul-searching.” After several decades of “intense growth,” there have been no religious blockbusters in the past couple of years to drive sales during the holiday,” a time religious retailers rely upon even more than their secular counterparts. The top-selling CD on major e-tailer Christianbook.com for much of the past week has been The Gift by Scottish singer Susan Boyle, who shot to worldwide fame on a British TV talent show, the newspaper reported. “The industry is looking forward to a boost in 2011, when there will be a new edition of the most popular evangelical Bible—the New International Version—as well as multiple spinoffs from the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.” |
Industry experts are divided as to the
reasons for the “flattening” of Christian product sales, according to The
Washington Post.
Back-to-basics
books about the Christian life are hitting the mark with readers in a new way,
according to the publisher behind one of the industry's greatest recent
successes. 
Thriller
writer Steven James features in two best-of-the-year book lists with titles
from his “Patrick Bowers” series published by Revell, a division of Baker
Publishing Group.
CrossBooks,
the self-publishing division of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern
Baptist Convention, has seen its first title picked up by a traditional
publisher.
The
Christian Writers Guild (CWG), owned by best-selling author Jerry B. Jenkins,
has acquired Word Weavers, a writing critique group network with chapters in
three states. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
A
children's Bible featuring the Berenstain Bears and a first novel from
best-selling author Lee Strobel are among the new releases coming from
Zondervan next year.