Books’ appeal hurts Christian stores

Hillel Italie of The Associated Press Reports million-copy sellers such as Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” and the “Left Behind” novels by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye have transformed a specialized part of the book business into a billion-dollar, highly competitive market.

This wider recognition for Christian books actually has hurt Christian booksellers. Books such as “The Purpose Driven Life,” which once would have been sold exclusively in Christian stores, are now available at superstore chains, department stores and price clubs such as Sam’s Club, often at much lower cost.

May 22, 2004 by Blake Uncategorized 6

pchuck says:

May 22, 2004 at 2:22 am

Buggy-Whips & Funny Statues …..
And car sales destroyed the buggy-whip industry.

When the popular triple A baseball player leaves and gets moved up to the Majors, then ticket sales may take a nose dive for the minor league club.

I guess the Christian bookstores have to sell more of these. I love the one with the Lord doing the option play. The other one with the Lord doing a hip-check is also great. It is hard to keep a straight face and look at these statues.

This is what Borders and B&N are doing to independent booksellers. It is called competition.

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nbruce says:

May 22, 2004 at 3:30 pm

Good news bad news for the small guy
This is common in niche marketing. Little health food stores were hurt when the major supermarkets put in a health food section; t-shirt shops are hurt when mega-stores can offer a much lower price. Even food fads, healthy or not. Krispy Kreme and Panera’s are losing customers (temporarily I think) to low-carb biz. Local bagel shops were hurt a few years ago after benefiting from the bagel craze when the bagel chains moved in.

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Cyberpunk Librarian says:

May 22, 2004 at 6:48 pm

Christian books at Sam’s Club etc.
Me, I still have no idea why the Left Behind series is so popular. I’ve read apocolyptic literature before, and I gotta say that those books are some of the most poorly written, boring, and predictable I’ve ever picked up. I couldn’t even get through one. Besides, I don’t wanna read them for the same reason I didn’t go see Titanic in cinemas. After all, I bet I know how it ends.

Criticism aside, I don’t know why it was such a surprise to these Christian booksellers that Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club took on these books. Both stores (obviously owned by the same corporation) work very hard to promote themselves as “family friendly.” What scares the hell out of me is that Wal-Mart has such a huge market share that they can demand the censorship of items they sell.

I have a problem with that. I understand they have a right to not sell magazines like Maxim or FHM . It’s their store, they can do sell what they want. But I do have a problem with them having the ability to tell movie distributors, music distributors, and video game folks that “You better make a cleaner version of your movie/album/game or we’ll refuse to sell it here.”

And since they have such a huge market share, they can not only do that, they can get it done. All in the name of “family oriented.” Heck you can buy almost any semi-popular Christian book at Wal-Mart, and you’ve been able to do that for a long time. And like I said, with such a huge market share and fierce competition, if Wal-Mart starts selling Left Behind so will Costco, Target, and other big stores.

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GregS* says:

May 23, 2004 at 9:40 pm

Re:Christian books at Sam’s Club etc.
[I have a problem with that. I understand they have a right to not sell magazines like Maxim [maximonline.com] or FHM [fhm.com] . It’s their store, they can do sell what they want. But I do have a problem with them having the ability to tell movie distributors, music distributors, and video game folks that “You better make a cleaner version of your movie/album/game or we’ll refuse to sell it here.” ]

That’s no different then Rev. Jackson strong arming a business to donate to the Rainbow Coalition or demanding NASCAR to have more black drivers. People and Businesses demand things all the time. Blame those that choose to give in to them.

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Brian says:

May 24, 2004 at 4:54 am

Wal-Mart
Fast Company did a good article last year on Wal-Mart’s relationship with its suppliers.

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pchuck says:

May 24, 2004 at 6:58 pm

Re:Christian books at Sam’s Club etc.
Oh, I don’t know. Porn is not sold at Sam’s Club, Walmart,CostCo, K-Mart, ShopCo, Target or any other huge retail stores and it seems to be a thriving industry.

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