Hobby Lobby has taken the next step in its abortion-pill mandate case. The Christian-owned-and-operated chain run by the David Green family asked a federal appeals court Thursday in Denver for an exemption from part of the health-care law that requires it to offer an insurance plan that covers “morning-after” and “week-after” pills.

Following the en banc hearing before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, Kyle Duncan, general counsel for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and counsel on the case, said: “We are encouraged by today’s hearing before the full 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Being heard before all eight judges—rather than the typical three-judge panel—signifies the importance of the case and the arguments being made. We stand firm in our belief that Hobby Lobby should have the right to opt out of a provision that infringes on their religious beliefs, and we look forward to a favorable outcome.”

David C Cook plans to exit the distribution portion of its Kingsway business unit in the United Kingdom this summer. Kingsway Music operations, known as Integrity Music, will continue, as will the company’s Canadian distribution operations.

“This announcement follows much consideration of what is right for our entire organization,” said Cris Doornbos, CEO of David C Cook. “Despite our best efforts and the hard work of our team, which has built an efficient distribution operation in the U.K., it hasn’t become the sustainable business we need it to be for long-term viability and financial health. As a nonprofit ministry, a financial surplus is necessary to support our efforts around the world. While we now have an efficient operation, it is no longer profitable, and this impedes our ability to honor our mission.”

Integrity Music’s All Sons & Daughters is donating all proceeds from the worship duo's Songs for Oklahoma EP to help survivors of the May 20 tornado that devastated much of Moore, Okla.

Available through Noisetrade.com, Songs for Oklahoma features the songs “Give Me Jesus,” “Reason to Sing” and “Your Glory—Nothing But the Blood.” The EP's proceeds will go to Convoy of Hope, which is sending relief teams to Moore.

David "Skip" Prichard, who resigned as CEO of Ingram Content Group in June 2012, has been appointed as the Online Computer Library Center's (OCLC) president and CEO.

Prichard will take over for Jay Jordan, who will retire June 30 after 15 years as OCLC president and CEO. Prichard will serve as OCLC president-elect, effective June 3, and will officially become president and CEO July 1.

"Skip Prichard is a proven leader with an outstanding record of accomplishment," said Sandy Yee, chairperson of OCLC's board of trustees and dean of Wayne State University Libraries and School of Library and Information Science. "He has guided leading library services organizations through eras of significant change, from print to electronic and from local to global. His experience and commitment to libraries will help us continue our work to move library services and cooperation forward—in the cloud, on mobile devices and through the collaborative work of libraries and partners around the world."

Prichard added: "OCLC has a long tradition of strong leadership and vision, and I consider myself fortunate to have the opportunity to lead the cooperative into what promises to be an exciting and challenging future. OCLC and member libraries are using the newest technologies available to move library services to the cloud where they continue to collaboratively build resources and infrastructure to share. I look forward to working with the talented OCLC staff and membership to ensure that we build on that momentum, and provide the resources necessary for libraries and librarians around the world to meet and exceed the increasing expectations of their users."

Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit service and research organization dedicated to improving access to the world's information and reducing library costs.

In a Christian Retailing report in 2011, Prichard, who was with Ingram for five years, said the company had restructured so that Christian products could be better distributed to any channel and other general market products could, in turn, be accessed by Christian stores.

"We want to do everything we can to help Christian stores survive and thrive," he said.

Spring Arbor, Ingram's wholesale distributor, has served the Christian market for nearly 30 years.

Parable Group has announced that its Email Append service has located more than 250,000 customer email addresses and reactivated inactive customers for participating stores. Additionally, reactivated shoppers spent three times the participating stores' investment to find the email addresses.

"It's much easier and more profitable to reactivate an old, 'lost' customer, than to acquire a new one," said Parable Business Intelligence Manager Erik Ernstrom. "We have learned that finding these customers for stores and bringing them back home through Email Append is an extremely successful and cost-effective strategy. The Email Append service pays for itself."

Launched in 2008 and open to all Christian stores, the service adds email addresses to stores' lists by matching email addresses for existing postal address files. Parable then sends an opt-out email to all emails matched with Email Append, while double checking the emails' veracity and ensuring recipients' permission. Matched emails are then provided to the store, and retailers only pay for deliverable addresses.

"Approximately 20% of a store's mailing list will return with matching email addresses," said Parable Lead Business Analyst Kyla Falkenhagen. "So a physical mailing list with 5,000 names could instantly add 1,000 email addresses."

Parable founder and CEO Steve Potratz added: "Email is an effective way to expand communications to your less active customers and to begin to see monetary value from them once again. As a store owner, it is critical to your success to get the word out about your products through various marketing channels, and to let your customer decide where and how they wish to respond. If the rising cost of printing and sending direct mail doesn't allow you to dig deep into your customer file, then sending emails is a great way to re-engage these customers."

For more information, visit www.parablegroup.com.

Maintaining an upward trend, publishers' revenue from e-books has increased nearly 45% since 2011, and digital books "now constitute" 20% of the overall book market, according to BookStats Volume 3.

Incorporating net sales revenue and unit data from nearly 1,500 publishers as well as estimates and analysis of the publishing industry, BookStats Volume 3, which will be available for purchase in June, is billed as the most comprehensive evaluation and analysis of the book industry.

The "most pivotal driver" of e-books remains Adult Fiction, with Children's/Young Adult also showing strong numbers, according to BookStats Volume 3. Total digital book sales for 2012 stands at more than $3 billion, rising from more than $2.1 billion in 2011.

"E-book are now fully embedded in the format infrastructure of trade book publishing," BookStats Volume 3 said. "The consistent growth of e-books demonstrates that publishers have successfully evolved the technology environment for their content—more so than other historically print-based content industries."

The overall book market, which includes all formats, exceeded more than $27 billion in 2012, BookStats Volume 3 said. Trade publishing, which includes fiction and nonfiction for adults, children's/young adult, professional/scholarly publishing and religious titles, experienced significant growth in the past two years, with sales increasing nearly 7% in 2012 ($15 billion) versus 2011 ($14 billion).

Since its debut edition covering 2008-2010, BookStats has been co-produced by the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group.

Visit http://www.bisg.org/news-5-836-press-release-bookstats-volume-3-now-available.php for more information.

Christian retail stores are offering deals for the weekend of Memorial Day, May 27.

LifeWay Christian Stores' Memorial Day Weekend Event sale, which runs May 24-27, offers 25% discount on entire purchase of sale and clearance items. Additionally, the chain is offering 50% off select Bibles and books such as Francis Chan's Multiply (David C Cook); $5 VeggieTales DVDs, including Pistachio: The Little Boy That Woodn't (Big Idea/Word Distribution); $7.99 for CDs such as Into The Light by Matthew West (Sparrow Records/Capitol Christian Distribution) and Love Come to Life by Big Daddy Weave (Fervent Records/Word).

Family Christian Stores is advertising a "Patriotic Tees & More" sale on its website, spotlighting $5.97 T-shirts from Kerusso and Red Letter 9, which are discounted from the $16.99 regular price. Styles include Be a Light Liberty; In God I Trust; Scars and Stripes; and VeggieTales Little Patriot.

Mardel Christian & Education is running a "Select Books $5 Each" sale, including Kyle Idleman's Not a Fan, Mark Batterson's The Circle Maker and Lysa TerKeurst's Unglued (all Zondervan); plus Todd Burpo's Heaven Is for Real (Thomas Nelson).