The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's (ECPA) Christian Book Expo (CBE) presence at the Miami Book Fair International, at the weekend, was "a good learning experience," said the publishers' group President and CEO Mark Kuyper.

Kuyper and ECPA Director of Information and Education Michael Covington sold books from 10 Christian publishers under the CBE banner during the Friday-to-Sunday street fair--part of the 26th annual event, where the featured guests included Al Gore and musician Iggy Pop.

"In terms of sales, it wasn't a huge hit, but it wasn't a disaster either," Kuyper told Christian Retailing. "It was a good learning experience."

Kuyper said that he was surprised that Christian fiction did not sell well, and he also discovered that hardcovers were not as popular with attendees as paperbacks. One exception was Bibles, with sales of a number of higher-end editions.

Kuyper decided to test the waters at the book fair after hearing from ECPA members who were still keen to find ways of promoting greater awareness of Christian books, despite the failure of the organization's CBE in March. The event at the Dallas Convention Center drew only a tenth of the anticipated turnout.

Kuyper said that there could be value in promoting Christian books at existing events like the Miami fair. Consideration would be given to a similar presence at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in Los Angeles in April 2010.

While ECPA represented 10 companies with 90 titles on sale, some Christian publishers had their own booths in Miami, including Baker Publishing Group, Crossway and WORDsearch.

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