Products licensed to the surprise publishing hit of the year are likely to be in stores soon.

The team behind The Shack has been finalizing agreements on tie-ins—expected to include T-shirts and keepsakes—as the book's remarkable success story continues.

"We are wanting to be careful about the whole area of merchandising," said Brad Cummings, publisher of Windblown Media. "We have had a fair amount of inquiries, and we will be careful about what seems appropriate. There are some fun things that are some great conversation starters."

Cummings and Wayne Jacobsen brought out William P. Young's novel themselves last year after being unable to find a Christian publisher interested in the story about a grieving man's encounter with God in an abandoned shack.

Licensing will probably include T-shirts, Cummings said, with some of the revenues going to charity. Proposed designs included, "I'm especially fond of you," a quote from the book, and "Where's your Papa?," a reference to the name given to God in the story.

Meanwhile Cummings and Jacobsen, who worked with Young on refining his original manuscript, have teamed up with the author again for a discussion guide for The Shack due out in the first quarter of 2009. The book will explore the novel's themes without being too directional in tone, Cummings said.

Read the full report in the Dec. 8 issue of Christian Retailing.

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