The largest national Christian bookstore chain, Family Christian, has picked up six titles from publishing company Graham Blanchard—the only publishing company specializing in board books that help parents teach their kids about God from infancy. 

This is the first national chain to carry titles by Graham Blanchard Inc. out of Austin, Texas, which celebrated its first anniversary on Oct. 1, 2014.

Graham Blanchard has released nine children’s titles to date. All have been well received by more than 100 websites and blogs written by Christian parents, and top trade outlets like Foreword Reviews, CBA Retailers and Resources and Publishers Weekly, which positively reviewed titles like Your Core, saying, “Rhyme and illustration work in tandem to engage readers while explaining something that isn’t concrete, yet has connections to things that are.”

Graham Blanchard books fall into three unique categories: Learn, Absorb & Praise™. Learn books dig into the Bible, weaving key quoted passages with a child’s life, using colorful photographs and supportive text. Absorb books connect studies about the facts of God with a child’s inner life—what Jesus cares about most. Praise books celebrate the soul-pleasing wonders of God that children experience every day.

Family Christian stores picked up books from each of the categories, including all three Knowing My God series titles, which will be sold online. The other three titles, Little Seed: A Life, Mud Puddle Hunting Day and All of Me That You Can’t See, will be sold in the 260 stores across the country. Family Christian sells products to help consumers find, grow, share and celebrate their faith. Revenue from Family Christian sales is donated to global ministries that support orphans and widows in need.

“Getting books approved for sale in Family Christian stores is a really big deal for a new publisher,” said Larry Carpenter, president and CEO of Christian Book Services, who advises Graham Blanchard on sales and marketing issues. “This year, there will be over one million new books published, and a national bookstore chain can only pick up a fraction of those titles. For Family Christian to take six of Graham Blanchard’s books really says a lot about the quality of the product and company.” 

After 20 years in business, Kregel Parable Christian Stores has announced that it is closing its East Beltline Avenue store in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The store began a liquidation sale on Jan. 19 and hopes to close the doors by Feb. 28.

Keeping the store open is “no longer the right thing for us to do,” owners Jim and Kathie Kregel and Jerry Kregel penned in an open letter to the general public. The Kregels instead will focus their time, energy and funds on its downtown Grandville Kregel Parable Store and its P. Graham Dunn Art, Home Décor and Personalized Gifts Store, as well as its Ministry Resources Division. The company will also continue to supply churches with a wide range of curriculum, VBS and church supplies from its office/warehouse in northeast Grand Rapids. Orders will still be available by means of national shipping services or for pickup at the downtown Grandville, Michigan, store.

“While closing a store location is not easy, we believe it is important to recognize when that time has come,” the Kregels said. “When a business closes, people often view the business as having failed. We believe, in this case, nothing could be further from the truth. For 20 years, we have run an honest business, created local jobs, given back to the community in countless ways and sold products we are proud of. To us, it seems like success.”

As part of the transition, the Kregels have “reluctantly released” Bob Gillett, manager of Kregel Ministry Resources, to pursue other opportunities. Gillett has been a loyal employee for 16 years.

The Kregels expressed their gratitude to their East Beltline patrons.

“The highlight of our retail ministry has been connecting with so many loyal, receptive customers,” the Kregels said in their letter. “The friends we have made over the years at the East Beltline store truly have been a blessing. We are deeply indebted for the support and the wonderful experience it has provided for our family, our staff and our community.”

Customers will enjoy initial storewide savings of 20% on all regular retail prices while numerous sections will immediately feature savings of up to 80%. Storewide discounts will increase significantly during the duration of the sale as inventory is depleted.

Barbour Publishing has announced that Josh McDowell and David R. Smith have been listed on Vyrso’s Top 15 Authors to Watch in 2015 list. Vyrso is an online bookstore for Christian eBooks.

McDowell has been at the forefront of cultural trends and groundbreaking ministry for over 50 years; he founded Josh McDowell Ministry—a division of Cru—and he has authored or co-authored 142 books. McDowell’s upcoming book, God-Breathed: The Undeniable Power of Reliability of Scripture (April 2015), unpacks how scripture—the living Word of God—speaks directly into our lives. For more information, please visit josh.org.

Over the past 15 years, David R. Smith has focused on youth and college ministry, pastoring hundreds of students and equipping ministry leaders through training events, seminars, books, and more. Smith attended seminary and received a Master of Divinity in church ministry.

His upcoming book, Christianity … It’s Like This (February 2015), takes an uncomplicated look at the Christian faith, unpacking important doctrine, what it means to be a Christ-follower, and discussing the Bible, God, and salvation. For more information on David R. Smith, please visit davidrsmith.org.

Christian Retailers reported a lift in December sales and traffic, according to The Parable Group. Sales stats by the group show a 3 percent December sales lift over December 2014, and a 19 percent increase in sales for the week ending December 27 over the same week in 2013.

“Dozens of our retail partners had a strong month, many in the double-digits, and it really lifted the group number up,” says Erik Ernstrom, Manager of Business Intelligence for The Parable Group. “That week before Christmas was stronger than most of us anticipated.”

Retailers reported that the 12 Days of Christmas daily deals promoted in their catalogs, targeted shared mail (Redplum/Valassis), newspaper inserts, promotional in-store signage, email marketing and Facebook campaigns developed by The Parable Group were effective in driving consumer traffic and increasing sales in their stores.

“The 12 Days of Christmas Sale that we promoted in Red Plum seemed to have a bigger impact for our Reno store and drove some traffic,” said Deidre Pagni from His Word, a Parable Christian Store in Reno and Sparks, Nevada. “Plus, we did a better job preparing our stock levels for the 12 Days of Christmas Sale traffic as well.”

Matthew Wright of Praises Family Books & Gifts in Chillicothe, Ohio, said his company’s catalog sales helped to boosts its numbers.

“December was a great month for us. We really pushed the 12 Days of Christmas sales hard. We sent an email reminder every day of the sale to our entire email list. We used the aggressive coupon option to generate traffic from our catalogs. Plus, we gave customers a bounce back coupon at the completion of the sale that encouraged them to come back in. Our promotional plan through Parable print catalogs, SnapRetail emails and proper staff training provided us with a great December, and an end to a good year. Higher traffic made the difference in our sales.”

Gift cards were projected to be the most popular holiday gift option, with 80 percent of shoppers saying they planned to buy at least one, according to a National Retail Federation survey. They aren’t counted as part of a retailer's sales, though, until they are redeemed.

“The post-Christmas period is when that starts and that’s a great way to start the new year,” Ernstrom said.

Faithlife, makers of Logos Bible Software, has partnered with Yale University Press and the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University to offer thousands of new digital texts by American philosopher and theologian, Jonathan Edwards.

Faithlife’s new 26-volume collection offers the most comprehensive archive of Edwards’ treatises, sermons, letters, musings and previously unpublished works ever assembled.

Yale University Press has spent years compiling unreleased works into print books and scanned PDFs; this new collection is the first to present this unprecedented collection in a highly accessible digital format.

“While the previously released letterpress edition of Yale’s Works of Jonathan Edwards is a significant achievement, it includes less than half of what Edwards wrote,” said Dr. Kenneth Minkema, Executive Editor and Director at the Jonathan Edwards Center and Online Archive at Yale University. “The Jonathan Edwards Center has been working to prepare the remainder of Edwards’ vast corpus, presenting it online and now in partnership with Faithlife. This is an exciting opportunity for us as editors of Edwards’ writings and, we hope, for readers who will have new texts—treatises, essays, sermons, notebooks, personalia and more—to digest.”

Scholars, teachers and students can now include the world’s largest digital resource for an American religious figure in their personal digital libraries. When used with Logos Bible Software, these works are completely searchable. In seconds, find every occurrence of the word “hell” in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and every sermon where he addressed “grace.”

Baker Publishing Group has announced that Shaun Tabatt has joined the Bethany House and Chosen divisions as the new publicist of nonfiction.

Tabatt most recently served as the community development manager for Fortress Press, where he hosted their Fortress Press live podcast. He also hosts the growing Author Talks with Shaun Tabatt podcast and is the founder of Cross Focused Media, an agency that provides social media and literary publicity services to the Christian publishing community. Tabatt has worked on projects for a number of publishers, including Zondervan and B&H. He and his family live in Cottage Grove, Minnesota.

“With Shaun’s background and online and social media savvy, he has brought a fresh perspective and energy to our team,” said Carra Carr, marketing director for Bethany House nonfiction and Chosen. “As we look to the future and the shifting priorities of media, he’s already helping to realign and revitalize our core publicity strategies—and I’m excited to see the positive impact this will have on our authors and their books.”

Leadership Journal and Hearts & Minds Books both honored a number of InterVarsity Press titles with awards for the best books of 2014. Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good by Steven Garber made both lists, as the 2014 Book of the Year by Hearts & Minds Books and as one of four books to receive the 2014 Leadership Journal Book Award in the category of the Leader’s Outer Life.

“Through his writing, speaking and consulting, Steve Garber has had a remarkable and significant impact in the lives of students, pastors, Christian educators, organizational and international leaders for many years,” InterVarsity Press publisher Bob Fryling said. “Visions of Vocation fits into that rare category of a book that is not only beautifully written but also intellectually and spiritually profound in its insights and motivating power. IVP is proud to publish such a rich contribution to the church, and I am glad but not surprised by the recognition and honors it is receiving.”

Garber is the principal of the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation & Culture, which is focused on reframing the way people understand life, especially the meaning of vocation and the common good. Visions of Vocation is written out of Garber’s decades of experience guiding people in working through critical questions of understanding the needs of the world and our calling to it.

“I’ve declared this the best, the most important, the most interesting, the most vital book, and my personal favorite book, of the last several years,” wrote Byron Borger, owner of Hearts & Minds Books.

“Garber fills in the fuzzy ideas about vocation and calling with stories of friends who have thoroughly and thoughtfully discerned how loving God’s world plays out in real life,” says David Swanson, a contributing editor at Leadership Journal. “As a preacher I benefited from this vision of vocation that extends to every person in the pew.”

Leadership Journal also gave an award in the category of the Leader’s Inner Life to Living in Christ’s Presence: Final Words on Heaven and the Kingdom of God by Dallas Willard. Leadership Journal contributing editor Lee Eclov said, “My soul grew reading this book. Or perhaps more precisely, my soul grew as this book read me.”

Hearts & Minds Books honored a number of other InterVarsity Press titles as well, including three in the category of Best Books About the Church in 2014. The IVP books included The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches are Transforming the Mission, Discipleship and Community by Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens and Dwight J. Friesen, Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus by C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison, and Fail: Finding Hope and Grace in the Midst of Ministry Failure by J.R. Briggs.

“Their publication not only illustrates an important trend in Christian publishing, as it surely does, but illustrates some of the best insights and (dare I say it without violating these author’s resistance to technique and formula) best practices, for clergy, congregational leaders, church planters, and parish activists,” Borger said.

Hearts & Minds Books gave the award for the Best Book of Apologetics to True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of Our Complex World by David Skeel. “I love that the back of this book states ‘Our complex world raises difficult questions’ without shying away. We’re not shy in affirming this is one of the Best Books of 2014,” Borger said.

Doing Good Without Giving Up: Sustaining Social Action in a World That’s Hard to Change by Ben Lowe received the honorable mention for the Most Valuable Resource for Social Justice Ministry. “This is a book I have longed for in years past, and one I want to share with anyone who wants to persevere when, as he says, ‘the novelty wears off and our enthusiasm runs out,’“ Borger said.

For more information about these awards visit heartsandmindbooks.com.