David Gullion, who ran and owned bookstores for more than 45 years, died in September

Independent Christian retailer David Gullion, who ran and owned bookstores for more than 45 years, died from a heart condition Sept. 15 at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C. He was 71.

Gullion’s son, Dwight Gullion—president and co-owner of Gullion’s Christian Supply Center, which has three locations in the Winston-Salem area—told Christian Retailing that his father managed and then owned Hazard Christian Supply in Hazard, Ky., from 1967 to 1981. He said it was the first Christian bookstore in the Appalachian region.

After Gullion changed its name to Dwight’s Bible Shop in the mid-70s, he started two additional Christian bookstores in Whitesburg, Ky., and Neon, Ky. He also ran a bookstore for the Evangelical Free Church in Hazard from 1966 to 1968. In 1983, Gullion sold the business and moved his family to Martinsville, Va., where he served as a basketball coach, teacher and principal at a Christian school.

Moving to Winston-Salem in 1989, Gullion and his son, Dwight, co-founded Gullion’s Christian Supply Center in Winston-Salem in 1992. The store eventually grew to four locations by 2002, but consolidated to three stores in Winston-Salem, Statesville and Mt. Airy, N.C. Gullion managed the Statesville location from 1998 until his death.

“Everything he did was ministry,” Dwight said. “He spent 45 years in ministry as a missionary, teacher, pastor, coach and Christian bookstore owner, influencing tens of thousands of people for God. His life’s theme was 'Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; Only what’s done for Christ will last.' ”

Gullion is survived by his wife, Loretta, three sons and several grandchildren.

Third annual effort to 'celebrate Christian retail' focused on providing hunger relief among American children 

Christian retailers reported good sales and positive feedback for CBA's third annual Christian Store Week (CSW), which ran Sept. 28 through Oct. 8.

Tammy Horvath, CBA member relationship specialist, said she has received numerous calls from participating retailers indicating positive gains for the first weekend of the promotion.

More than 400 Christian stores nationwide—including 134 independent retailers and the Family Christian Stores chain—partnered with World Vision to raise awareness of the need for hunger relief among American children as part of CSW, an effort to spotlight Christian bookstores and drive traffic, CBA said.

Bill Ballou, owner and manager of The Solid Rock in Kearney, Neb., told Christian Retailing that overall sales were up by a small percentage from last year's CSW.

“This is primarily due to the Saturday [Sept. 29] special sale of 'Spend More-Save More,” which we did not have last year,” said Ballou, noting his store sent 7,500 emails with the CSW brochure and alerted 1,000 Facebook contacts. “The Saturday sales were about a 25% increase over last year for same-day sales.”

Ballou emphasized a different section of his store for each day of CSW, while offering a drawing for prizes if customers spent $50-plus and brought in canned goods. “The major response was in the goodwill created by having different sales categories for each day—a something-for-everyone idea,” he said. “We will keep tweaking it for next year.”

Kelly Harding, bookstore manager at Central Christian College of the Bible in Moberly, Mo., said sales “have been up just a little” from last year's CSW.

“It's better this year because instead of just offering a sale, we are hosting events,” said Harding, noting the store partnered with a local church for a food drive tied to customers' canned goods donations. “Every year we seem to step up a little more and find new ways to celebrate this event. ... We took advantage of the marketing tools that CBA provided, such as the press release and printable flyers.”

CLC Bookcenter in Northfield, N.J., hosted a family fun dayon Oct. 6 as part CSW, collecting more than 300 pounds of food and $200 dollars in donations for the Community Food Bank of New Jersey. The fun day, which included live music, face painting and cotton candy, collected enough food for more than 600 meals.

Social e-reading platform BookShout! has inked a deal with HarperCollins, Macmillan, Wiley and Content Group, adding to the 250-plus publishers whose e-books are now available via the app. With the addition of five of the "Big Six" publishers, BookShout! now has more digital books available than Apple did for the launch of its iBooks store.

Capitalizing on the growing digital market, Dallas-based Rethink Books launched BookShout! in April on the iPhone and iPad, and it is now available on iOS, Android and the Internet. Touted as "a revolutionary new reading platform," BookShout! enables users to engage and interact with each other while reading digital books—allowing friends to read books together, whether nearby or far apart.

"Some of the world's largest publishers are innovating with us, which is beneficial to the entire digital publishing ecosystem," said Jason Illian, CEO and founder of BookShout!, developed during the past two years for the Christian market.

Every major Christian publisher participated in the BookShout! launch with a number of free e-books. Approximately 10,000 titles are now available for purchase through the BookShout! store from publishers such as Zondervan and Tyndale House Publishers.

BookShout! also announced recently at the Frankfurt Book Fair "a revolutionary new disruptive technology" that enables users to make e-book purchases from any source—starting with Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook—and use them on the social e-reading platform at no additional cost.

Consumers previously had to read their e-book on the e-reader for which it was purchased. Illian developed the technology that "enables readers to create a universal bookshelf and have new tools to help with discoverability and sharing," company officials said.

"In essence, we are tearing down the walls the large e-book retailers have established, and are no longer allowing them to build consumer-unfriendly fiefdoms," Illian said. "We are giving the consumers the freedom to access their book purchases when and where they want them, which is the whole point of digital publishing."

In other news from Frankfurt, Book Industry Study Group and representatives from 16 countries announced the formation of a new global standard to categorize and classify book content by subject called Thema.

The new standard is flexible, allowing "each market to retain its unique cultural voice while still presenting a unified hierarchy that rationalizes book categorization," organizers said. "The goal of Thema is to reduce confusion about subject codes for both upstream and downstream trading partners in order to facilitate the sale of more books."

The owner of Pennsylvania-based charismatic publisher Destiny Image has purchased several billboards placed in strategic places in two of the state's largest cities—Philadelphia and Pittsburgh—in an attempt to convince undecided voters to choose Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for the nation's highest office.

The billboards by Don Nori Sr., CEO of Nori Media Group and Destiny Image, read: "We need REAL hope, REAL change; NO OBAMA 2012," referencing the president's campaign slogan in 2008.

Nori said his motives for purchasing the billboards were simple. "I am a business owner, and I'm tired of the government for taking what they want and taxing the rest," he said. "I'm just one little guy. I hope what I'm doing can help bring about some change."

The billboards read: "We need REAL hope, REAL change; NO OBAMA 2012," referencing President Obama's campaign of hope in 2008.

When Nori put up three billboards, a poll published by The Philadelphia Inquirer showed Obama led Romney by three points in Pennsylvania heading into the final three weeks prior to the election. While most polls still have Obama ahead, Romney led Obama in a Susquehanna Polling and Research poll Oct. 18 by 49% to 45%, according to The Washington Examiner.

Pennsylvania is designated as one of the "swing" states for November's presidential election. With 20 electoral votes, the state is projected to have a big impact on the outcome of the race.

Initially, Nori wanted the billboard to read: "We need REAL hope, REAL change, Obama must Go, OMG 2012." But he said CBS and TNT told him to revise the words.

The billboard also said that the message was paid for by DI (Destiny Image) Inc., and provided a telephone number to call with any questions.

"There were 700,000 conservatives in Pennsylvania that didn't vote in the last presidential election," Nori said. "These billboards are meant to reach out to the voters who are on the fence in the two most contested regions of Pennsylvania.

"The money I would have normally used to put into someone's campaign, I decided to put it to a different use this time out," he added. "I'm hoping that my investment in these billboards and my email campaign to conservatives will make an impact on this election."

Nori recently sent out an eblast targeting 150,000 conservatives in Pennsylvania. The eblast featured the message that a change in leadership was needed to help turn around the country's fortunes, and a plea for conservatives to hit the polls Nov. 6.

Nori said he has not received any backlash from the billboards. Pennsylvania has voted for the Democratic candidate for president since 1988, when George H.W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis.

This article was originally published by Charisma News.

Rick Santorum 's American Patriots debuted at No. 18 on the General best-sellers from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA), tracking sales for the week ending Oct. 27, according to Pubtrack Christian data. The book was released Oct. 2.

The Top 20 General best-sellers were: 1. Jesus Calling, Sarah Young, hardcover (Thomas Nelson); 2. Praying God's Word, Beth Moore (B&H Books/B&H Publishing Group); 3. The Bridge, Karen Kingsbury (Howard Books); 4. Grace, Max Lucado (Thomas Nelson); 5. Jesus Calling, Young, large print deluxe (Thomas Nelson); 6. Jesus Today, Young, hardcover (Thomas Nelson); 7. I Declare, Joel Osteen (FaithWords); 8. One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp (Zondervan); 9. Jesus Calling, Young, deluxe (Thomas Nelson); 10. The Harbinger, Jonathan Cahn (FrontLine/Charisma House Book Group); 11. Heaven Is for Real, Todd Burpo (Thomas Nelson); 12. Unglued, Lysa TerKeurst (Zondervan); 13. Full Disclosure, Dee Henderson (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group); 14. God Loves You, David Jeremiah (FaithWords); 15. Battlefield of the Mind, Joyce Meyer (FaithWords); 16. The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman (Northfield Publishing); 17. Crazy Love, Francis Chan (David C Cook); 18. American Patriots; 19. Not a Fan, Kyle Idleman, hardcover (Zondervan); and 20. Heaven Changes Everything, Todd and Sonja Burpo (Thomas Nelson).

The Top 10 Fiction best-sellers were: 1. The Bridge; 2. The Harbinger; 3. Full Disclosure; 4. The Bridesmaid, "Home to Hickory Hollow" No. 2, Beverly Lewis (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group); 5. All Things New, Lynn Austin (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group); 6. Coming Home, Karen Kingsbury (Zondervan); 7. To Whisper Her Name, "Belle Meade Plantation" No. 1, Tamera Alexander (Zondervan); 8. River of Mercy, "Riverhaven Years" No. 3, B.J. Hoff (Harvest House Publishers); 9. When a Heart Stops, "Deadly Reunion" No. 2, Lynette Eason (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group); and 10. A Patchwork Christmas Collection, Judith Miller, Nancy Moser and Stephanie Grace Whitson (Barbour Publishing).

The top five Bibles were: 1. The Story, NIV, deluxe, hardcover, New International Version (Zondervan); 2. NLT Chronological Life Application Study Bible, hardcover, New Living Translation (Tyndale); 3. NIV Study Bible, hardcover (Zondervan); 4. KJV Personal Size Giant Print Reference Bible, hardcover, black, New King James Version (Thomas Nelson); and 5. NIrV Adventure Bible for Early Readers, hardcover (Zonderkidz).

Overall, religious book sales from publishers for the year-to-date versus the same time frame in 2011 saw almost a 9% drop to more than $324 million.

CBA's third annual Christian Store Week (CSW), which ran Sept. 28 through Oct. 8, raised $17,775 to support U.S. anti-poverty and hunger programs.

More than 430 Christian stores nationwide—including 138 independent retailers plus Berean Christian Stores and the Family Christian Stores chain—partnered with World Vision to raise awareness of the need for hunger relief among children in the U.S. as part of CSW, an effort to spotlight Christian bookstores and drive traffic, CBA said.

"The purpose of Christian Store Week was to help feed hungry children across the country," said CBA President Curtis Riskey. "There is a need across the country where one in five children live in poverty, and where about 15% of American households need food support—a 30% increase since 2006. ... With the help of our sponsors who strongly support Christian stores, we were able to tell that story and help an effective Christian ministry."

CSW was "important to raise awareness of the need for food and poverty assistance right here in the U.S.," said Mary Hogan, World Vision's representative for marketing and retail partnerships. "We are grateful for the tremendous support of Christian stores in our outreach."

The Salt Cellar in Lawton, Okla., had an iPad giveaway as part of its "Praise in the Parking Lot" event Oct. 6, which collected food and donations for the local food bank.

CSW featured an enhanced compilation CD, which was sold exclusively through Christian stores. Lift Up, produced by EMI CMG, featured songs from Big Daddy Weave, Francesca Batistelli, Kutless and other artists who donated royalties, fees and commissions for the CD. Proceeds benefited World Vision food programs.

"We sold the Lift Up CD all week," said Teresia Osborne, manager of The Salt Cellar. "Our staff was pretty good at asking each customer if they would like to buy it and telling them more about it. ... We had a display just for great-priced gifts like the special buy from Christian Art Gifts. All items on this display were priced at $5 each."

As with last year's CSW, Lighthouse Christian Products offered $120 worth of its catalog inventory via a package of 10 items to participating stores for $25 plus shipping and gave a free collage photo frame ($40 value) to retailers who wrote to tell about one of their favorite customers.

Lighthouse Vice President of Sales Ed Nizynski told Christian Retailing that the company gave away 43 free photo frames and 135 packages were sent to 61 retailers.

"The stories we received ranged from humorous to heartwarming, and from somewhat ordinary to spectacular," he said. "They were all very uplifting to our staff. This year we decided to not only support the stores with giveaways and special product programs, but to financially support the campaign and CBA initiatives.

"We wanted to again celebrate Christian retail and especially support the retailers," Nizynski added. "They are the missionaries, the frontliners and without them, our ministry could not exist."