Do you work for a publishing company? Are you an author? Do you want to write a book? After managing a Church (Christian) Bookstore for the last three years and spending nearly five previous years working for a best-selling Christian author I have come to learn a few things about retailing books and the Christian publishing industry. Here are four things I have come to learn in the past few years about books & retail:

1. Too many titles are absolute crap. One of my 10 searches on Twitter is “Christian Bookstore“. Time and again when I check the feed it is filled with people who say things like “I found this in a Christian Bookstore . . .” and then they will have some TwitPic of a terrible title, Hollywood “Christian” knock off or even worse, some book on metaphysics or the healing properties of meatloaf. Okay I am only kidding about the meatloaf, but the point is that publishing companies are publishing too many worthless books. Taking a chance on a new author can be exciting but 9 times out of 10 it results in too many books competing for a shrinking market. CEO of Thomas Nelson, Michael Hyatt also writes that publishers need to stop releasing as many books. My advice to publishers: stop publishing crap.
2. People don’t care who you are, they care what you have been through and how you can help them. Our church has been labeled as “seeker sensitive” meaning that we attract a lot of new believing Christians. As a result of the type of people who attend our church, most of the customers that come through our store have no idea about who the “who’s who” of Christian authors are. Honestly, most of them don’t care. I am totally guessing here, but I am estimating that 70% of our customers have no idea who Rick Warren, Donald Miller, Francis Chan, Swindoll, Stanley, Lucado or who any of the best sellers are. The people who come through our store are looking for books and resources that will help them with their journey. If you have a story, there is someone out there that needs your story to help them with theirs. My advice to authors: share your story, even if you aren’t “Christian famous” someone out there needs your story.
3. I don’t sell books, people sell books. My Twitter profile says: “I am a linchpin who wants to helps connect people with resources that will change their lives.” That is truly my heart and my passion. I want people to experience the life change that I have. No matter how sincere my heart is to connect people to resources that will change their lives I really get the opportunity to do it on a limited basis. The majority of the books we sell are because of the personal relationships between people. One person tries a book, loves it and recommends it to ten friends. Six of those friends buy the book and recommend it to ten more each. Before you know it we have sold cases and cases of books. I couldn’t have done that on my own, it is the relationships of the Central Christian Church family that sells books. My advice to those of you looking to write a book: despite all the changes in technology, blogging, and E-readers, books still sell because of personal relationships. Build your sales on the foundation of relationships with your readers.
4. The Bible is still the all time best selling book. A few months ago I asked one of my employees what she loved the most about her job. She didn’t have to think for a second before she responded, “I love helping people find their first Bible.” Amazing. The Bible is the all-time most selling book in the history of the world. Think about that. At Central that still rings true. We sell more Bibles that we do any other book, more than our Pastors books, more than any guest speaker and more than any CD. I saw a post the other day that Christian Bookstores were an oxymoron and that the only thing they should carry is the Bible. Well I am happy to respond that the Bible is the anchor for our store as it should be.

Are you an author? Publisher? Bookstore manager or worker? Thoughts? Agree? Disagree? Have anything to add to the list?