The statistics may be shocking to some. But according a study done by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Nielsen research firm, only 54 percent of Americans read a book of any kind last year, print or digital.

The “Decade of Arts Engagement” survey, which included 37,000 Americans, also revealed that the number of adults who read at least one novel, play or poem within the past year fell from 50% in 2008 to 47% percent in 2012. Thirty years ago, that number was at 56%.

Additionally, the survey revealed that the decline in fiction reading occurred mostly among white Americans—including men and women of various educational backgrounds—but the rates held steady among non-white and Hispanic groups.

Similar to newspapers, sales of print books are on a down slope. Fiction sales have suffered more than those of nonfiction. The sales of e-books have somewhat offset that trend, with 28% of adults reading in e-book in 2013, up 23% percent from the previous year, as reported on marketwatch.com.

Elizabeth Birr Moje, an education professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, believes the dip in fiction reading could simply be temporary.

“We have to be careful about making too much of changes from one point in time to another in examining [a] social phenomenon,” Moje told marketwatch.com.

Author Christopher Sorrentino told Dennis Abrams of publishingperspectives.com that biographies and self-help books could have a “certain utilitarian appeal.”

Market Watch’s Quentin Fottrell speculates that simple narcissism could also be a major contributor to the drop in the popularity of fiction.

“Americans may be more fascinated with their own lives than with those featured in great works of literary fiction,” he wrote. Fottrell pointed out that 56% of Internet users have Googled themselves.

According to a 2013 report by eMarketer, Americans spend 23 hours each week using social media, emailing and texting, to go along with easily accessible entertainment such as online gambling, music and movie and TV sites such as Hulu and Netflix.

At MarketWatch, Quintin Fottrell broke down the results of a new survey by the NEA along with research by the marketing firm Nielsen to determine what exactly Americans are reading and how it breaks down by gender.

Some of the results:

The number of adults who read at least one novel, play or poem within the past year fell from 50% in 2008 to 47% in 2012, according to a new survey of over 37,000 Americans, “A Decade of Arts Engagement” by the National Endowment for the Arts. (Thirty years ago, that number was at 56%.)

While reading fiction rose from 2002 to 2008, it’s been falling off ever since, and is now back down to 2002 levels. According to Fottrell, “The decline in fiction reading last year occurred mostly among white Americans, including men and women of various educational backgrounds; rates held steady among non-white and Hispanic groups,” according to the report.

Perhaps not surprisingly, men read more nonfiction than fiction; women read more fiction than men. Young adults are also more likely to read fiction than nonfiction, while Americans aged 75 and older are more likely to read nonfiction.

There were state by state differences as well. In Washington, 63% read literary fiction, dropping down to 56% in Colorado, Rhode Island and Connecticut, with just 37% in Nevada, 36% in Virginia, and … 34% in Alabama.

A mere 54% of Americans read any kind of book last year, be it print or digital, fiction or nonfiction. But fiction has seen the greatest drop in sales, according to Nielsen. While adult print book sales fell 2.5% to around 501.6 million from 2012 to 2013, non fiction sales were stable at 225.2 million; fiction sales dropped 11% to just 103.5 million. Poetry saw the sharpest decline in readership of any “literary genre,” falling from 12% to just 6.7%, according to the NEA.

But why the drop in fiction sales? Author Christopher Sorrentino speculated that biographies and self-help books could have a “certain utilitarian appeal. “Who wants to spend two weeks reading a novel that you might not like much?” he asked Fottrell.

And in an era of social media, it’s more and more difficult to “bond around the water cooler” to talk about a novel. Sorrentino pointed out that while there are thousands of novels published every year, only “a few hundred” get noticed, even by a “discerning reading public” either through newspaper reviews or celebrity endorsements. And while there are those occasional books that do go water cooler cool such as Gone Girl or Fifty Shades of Grey, “It’s really hard to read William Faulkner and go into the office and say, ‘What did you think of that last chapter of Light in August?’ In addition, he pointed out; people who might normally be attracted to novels can get fictional narratives complete with “complex characters” on cable TV.

Another possible explanation for the drop in popularity of fiction, Fottrell speculates is simple narcissism: “Americans,” he writes, “may be more fascinated with their own lives than with those featured in great works of literary fiction.” 56% of Internet users, he points out, have Googled themselves.

Then add to that self-interest the wide array of easily accessible entertainment, such as online gambling, music, and movie and TV sites such as Hulu and Netflix (according to a 2013 report by eMarketer, Americans spend 23 per hours each and every week ‘using social media, emailing and texting”), it’s a wonder that anybody has time to read anything at all.

Family Christian Stores has filed for a sale of its assets and operations under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. However, the good news for customers and employees is that the company does not expect to close any stores or lay off any employees during its restructuring plans.

“We strive to serve God in all that we do and trust His guidance in all our decisions, especially this very important one,” said Chuck Bengochea, who was named president and CEO of Family Christian Stores in July 2014. “We have carefully and prayerfully considered every option. This action allows us to stay in business and continue to serve our customers, our associates, our vendors and charities around the world.”

Family Christian Stores was purchased in 2012 by three businessmen and donated to Family Christian Ministries, a not-for-profit 501c3. Family Christian Stores operates in support of Family Christian Ministries’ mission partners and has a long history of giving to ministries serving widows and orphans.

A newly formed subsidiary of Family Christian Ministries will serve as the lead bidder for the Section 363 sale process. It will acquire the streamlined organization’s assets and maintain operation of Family Christian Stores’ 266 stores in 36 states, as well as its e-commerce site familychristian.com. Family Christian Stores is expecting to complete the sale process in about 60 days.

“Our customers will not see any change in operations during this process. After the court approves the sale, we can begin to reinvest in our stores and bring our customers products and services that will help us better fulfill our mission—to glorify God by helping people find, grow, share and celebrate their faith in Christ,” Bengochea said.

Family Christian Ministries also owns two other companies—iDisciple, an online source for Christian inspiration, messages, sermons and music; and Giving Films, a movie production company developing Christian movies. These two companies are not part of the restructuring and will continue to operate independently of Family Christian Stores.

For Bengochea's more detailed explanation of Family Christian's decision to file Chapter 11, see this video at fcsnewday.com.

Joel C. Rosenberg's The Third Target, a novel with a plot about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), has landed on several national best-seller lists for the fourth week in a row and is No. 1 in the Christian market, according to the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

It is currently No. 12 on the Publishers Weekly hardcover fiction best-seller list. That is up from No. 13 last week. It debuted at No. 4 on the PW list last month. The novel is on the USA Today list for the fourth-straight week, which combines all genres of best-sellers, from hardcover fiction to paperback to children's and business books.

The Third Target is also now the nation's No. 1 best-selling novel in the Christian market, according to the Evangelical Christian Publishing Association. It is also the No. 3 book overall in the North American Christian bookselling market, behind two non-fiction titles.

The novel also recently hit the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post hardcover fiction best-seller lists.

Nielsen BookScan’s recently published data that indicated Christian fiction sales dropped a significant 15% from 2013 to 2014. That sounds like bad news, but some Christian publishers are taking the data with a grain of salt.

“We know the numbers are true, but we’re not in a panic,” Karen Watson, associate publisher for Tyndale told Publishers Weekly. “Tyndale does fiction very well and it is a profitable part of Tyndale’s business.”

Revell and Bethany House—the two fiction divisions of Baker Publishing Group—are continuing to publish at full capacity despite flat lined revenue, according to Vice President of Sales and Marketing David Lewis. Revell and Bethany House publish a combined 80 to 90 titles a year.

“Our trade paper fiction revenue declined by 8%, our e-book revenue increased by 3%, and our cloth fiction has increased by 45%,” Lewis told Publisher’s Weekly. “We see that revenue share by format continues to adjust to the current market realities.”

Lewis said he attributes the revenue stagnation to more titles put on sale and significant discounts at brick-and-mortar accounts, and to fewer big releases last year. The increase in cloth fiction sales—only 6% of total fiction sales—is due to more sales in the library market.

HarperCollins Christian Publishing, with its Thomas Nelson and Zondervan fiction lines, publishes 55-60 new titles each year and actually experienced revenue growth in 2014.

“Print is here to stay, but the category is undergoing a period of reinvention,” Daisy Huton, vice president of fiction,” told PW. “The migration to digital reading is part of this, but the changing demands of our readers are an even bigger factor.”

WaterBrook Multnomah, which merged with Penguin House in 2013, is finding new opportunities for print sales. “The different divisions are learning from each other about how to really service our retailers, and that is not always value pricing,” Shannon Marchese, WaterBrook Multnomah’s senior editor for fiction told PW.

WaterBrook Multnomah publishes 12-16 fiction titles a year, with the house finding new opportunities thanks to the Penguin/Random House merger in 2013. “[The different divisions are] learning from each other about how to really service our retailers, and that is not always value pricing,” she said.

Hutton told PW that the “health of brick-and-mortar retails is critical to the fiction ecosystem.”

“It is not about prioritizing print over e-book purchasing and reading, but rather about continuing to support the discovery that happens at retail stores,” she said.

Publishers with major fiction programs told PW they aren’t panicking over the numbers.

“There are still a number of new opportunities out there, so this isn’t concerning,” Marchese said. “Books have value, fiction has value, and we’ll continue to put out quality voices for our readers.”

“We can spend our energy lamenting the decline of our category, or we can continue to believe that our authors have something to say and stories to tell, and then be all about providing them with the support they need to say it and have it be heard,” Hutton said.

The Parable Group Online Business Claiming service, expanded in 2014, is helping Christian Retailers to discover and improve their online brand and reputation with ease.

Launched in 2011, the service aids stores in evaluating, building and monitoring their brand health online. Stores receive quarterly reporting—including an overall online brand score—and easy-to-follow recommendations to reach more customers, improve consumer engagement and enhance their brand online.

The scoring model takes into account over 80 data points to create a brand score that not only reflects how strong a brand presence is, but also provides a benchmark for store’s efforts compared to others. The Parable Group evaluates website search results, reviews and social media from various online sources such as Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp, Bing Local, Yahoo! Local, Google Places, Twitter and LinkedIn and other online profiles for retailers, saving them time and allowing them to focus on serving customers.

“As a retailer, it’s tough to know just where to begin and what steps you should and should not take to manage your online reputation. The score provides a gauge of each store’s starting point and measures improvement over time. It’s basically a brand report card,” said Tiffany Davenport, data content coordinator for The Parable Group.

Score strength is measured as high with a score of 650-850, medium with a score of 550-650, and low with a score below 550. Most participating stores saw an increase over the past three months, and the current average brand score of 679 is well within the high score ranking.

“I love that The Parable Group monitors and evaluates my store’s online footprint for me—they save me countless hours of work,” said Danny Vera of Christ Centered Life Store in Fort Myers, Florida. “The reports provide me with our brand score, insights about where we rank on search engines, social media activity and recommendations we can take to raise our score and online engagement. I couldn’t get all of this information about my store on my own.”

Parable Group President Steve Potratz, also owner of The Parable Christian Store in San Luis Obispo, California, lauded the service’s benefits.

“In 2010, we moved our store from a high traffic downtown location with a lot of tourist traffic to a strip center on the outskirts of town. Months after our move, the Internet continued to display the downtown location, so we lost tourist traffic and a lot of local traffic,” Potratz said. “This caused us to search for a fix. We solved the problem and today our store is prominently listed on all maps and searches online.

“In fact, if you buy a new car with navigation, you’ll easily find our store in their maps too. We are happy to provide this tremendous solution to help all Christian retailers easily monitor, manage and strengthen their brand presence online.”

Kerusso, the leader in Christian apparel and gifts, has announced its new line designed to spread the good news to the world through even more stylish designs and creative products than ever before.

The new line of clothing features 18 new T-shirts for men and women, and five new designs for kids. The company is also introducing four tank tops that bear some of the same Bible verses and Christian-inspired designs used on the company’s best-selling T-shirts.

One of the new T-shirts, “Persecuted Church,” is designed to raise awareness of persecuted Christians around the world. A portion of the proceeds raised from the sale of this shirt will be donated to Open Doors.

The nonprofit organization whose mission is to support Christians in the world’s most oppressive countries by providing Bibles and gospel development, advancement of women and children, and community restoration.

“This is a timely matter,” said Vic Kennett, founder and chief executive officer of Kerusso. “The media coverage that persecuted Christians get is pretty minimal, so this is our way of making others aware of their plight, while raising money for their cause.”

Last year, Christians in the Middle East garnered national attention when they were singled out by the militant Islamic State in Iraq (ISIS), who painted the Arabic letter, “ن” on their homes. The ن stands for Nasara or Nazarenes, a pejorative Arabic word for Christian.

“There are many who would deny our Christian brothers and sisters the right to worship, and that is unacceptable to me,” Kennett said. “Mark 16:15 says, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.’ That is the driving force behind everything we do at Kerusso. It is our mission, and it pains me to think that there are people who fear for their lives simply because they believe in Jesus Christ.”

According to Open Doors, every month 322 Christians are killed for their faith, 214 churches or Christian properties are destroyed, and 772 violent acts are committed against Christians. The Open Doors organization has been in existence for nearly 60 years and serves Christians in more than 60 countries worldwide.

To learn more about the Persecuted Church T-shirt, and the rest of the new spring line from Kerusso, visit kerusso.com.

Getting a credit card bill is not the only stress for shoppers early in the new year. According the latest LoyaltyOne research, one out of every two U.S. shoppers (50.9 percent) say that returning gifts adds to their post-holiday stress, and nearly four out of 10 (39 percent) say they have re-gifted a present just to avoid the hassle of the retail return process.

The results of a nationwide survey LoyaltyOne conducted at the height of the post-holiday shopping season suggest the gift return experience is both a high-risk and high-reward retail touch point.

High-risk: 60.6 percent of consumers say they would stop shopping at a retailer after a poor gift return experience.

High-reward: Nearly eight out of 10 Americans (79.3 percent) say a positive experience returning a gift to a store that they rarely visit would motivate them to shop more often at that store, and 83.3 percent say they would share information about a positive gift return experience with friends and family.

An even greater number of shoppers, 86.9 percent, say they would share a negative return experience with friends and family, providing yet additional evidence that the customer relationship is on the line.

“The concept of high-risk touch points continues to gain the interest of retailers, as customers are increasingly fickle and their loyalty is divided,” says LoyaltyOne Consulting Managing Partner Dennis Armbruster. “It’s no longer just about attracting shoppers in the store, it's about cultivating their loyalty through the entire sales and return process.”

Armbruster says the retailer who handles the return incorrectly has much more to lose than the sale.

“Social media has made the returns process a winners or losers game in the court of public opinion,” he says. “Retailers should use shopper data to identify who their best customer segments are, and base return policies on what would suit this group. Retailers should use data to identify if the gift returner is a regular customer, and factor this into return guidelines—possibly extending the return deadline for loyalty program members.”

Some other key findings from the research on the gift return experience:

• More men indicated they have had a poor experience returning a gift to a retailer (45.1 percent of men vs. 31.7 percent of women)
• More men indicated they would be motivated to shop more at a retailer they rarely visit after a positive gift return experience (81.7 percent of men vs. 70.7 percent of women)
• 55.5 percent of millennials (ages 18-24) say they are stressed by the gift return experience, significantly above the rate of the general population (50.9 percent)
• 57.9 percent of women say they are stressed by the gift return experience, well above the rate of the general population (50.9 percent)
• 54.9 percent of Northeasterners say they are stressed by the gift return experience, scoring higher for stress than respondents from the Midwest, South and West.

The survey results are based on a January 21, 2015, online Google Consumer Survey featuring 1,207 responses. The survey’s margin of error is +/- 3.9 percent.