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Written by Andy Butcher
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Tuesday, 24 March 2009 08:38 AM EDT |
- The post-mortem has begun on the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's (ECPA) Christian Book Expo, which drew a “hugely disappointing” 1,500 to the Dallas Convention Center, March 20-22.
- While people are looking for the positive side, there's no getting away from the fact that it was “not just your run-of-the-mill disaster, but a disaster of epic proportions,” according to book Chip MacGregor, a supporter of the consumer-event concept. He sees the biggest single problem being the $29 admission charge, contending that people don't want to have to pay to go and buy books.
- Thomas Nelson chief Michael Hyatt (who is also chairman of the ECPA and its CBE organizing committee) acknowledges MacGregor's points, while maintaining that, organizationally, it would have been a great event if folks had shown up.
- Hyatt wonders whether some publishers will want to try again next year, in an economic climate that means that “really can’t afford to try too many things that don’t promise an immediate payback.”
- Among those hoping it does happen is Mary DeMuth, one of the 200-plus authors who took part in the event. As a Dallas-area resident, she suggests in her March 23 posting that poor promotion in the area was the big culprit and offers more than a dozen suggestions for improving things next time.
- Meanwhile inspirational writer Holley Gerth--who had one person show up for her signing at CBE and spotted one publisher's rep asleep at his booth--wonders whether there might be a challenge to our industry in the disappointing turnout. “It could be our moment to reach out in new ways, bare our hearts, open our lives, meet people where they are and stop expecting them to come to us,” she writes. “If we do not, I'm afraid we risk being irrelevant.”
- Finally, an interesting perspective from a secular online books site , speculating that the CBE turnout could mean Christian publishing is set to be hit “even harder than other parts of the industry” by the recession. “At a time when people are focusing on keeping their houses and their jobs, is the investment in a book that will help them purify their souls one of the luxuries that can be cut back on?”
- Your thoughts?
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