As they began preparing for the May 10 special day, retailers across the country who spoke about their plans agreed that Mother's Day was a great time for selling both frontlist and backlist books, cards and gifts--including gift books, music boxes, trinket boxes, plaques, vases, hand lotion and jewelry.

Jars of Clay will be the featured performer for the MAPS Field Trip April 19, while Heath and West will be among the artists taking part in the "Heart of the Artist" session, which allows registrants the opportunity to ask artists questions.

"Over the past year, as we've continued to address retailers' concerns, and worked with P.O.S. (point-of-sale) system providers to eliminate barriers to reporting, we've seen a 100% increase in the number of contracted stores who are reporting their data on a weekly basis," said Curtis Riskey, CBA's strategic solutions executive. "This makes CROSS:SCAN data richer and more helpful to everyone who depends on it for making informed inventory, merchandising and promotional plans, and it comes at a time when inventory management and managing cash flow are more critical than ever."

The NelsonFree program that lets purchasers of print copies download listening and reading digital versions at no extra cost will initially be limited to titles from its Business and Culture division, but could be extended to other categories if successful.

Bennett will serve as the director of external relations for Anderson's Graduate School of Christian Ministry--led by Michael Duduit, who was the founding editor of Preaching magazine. Classes will start in August--both on-site and online--for the master of ministry degree program.

Until now, only products that released in the previous year qualified for nomination, but for the 2009 awards, products can be entered in the new Backlist category. Suppliers may wish to enter a book, CD or gift that was a Christian retail best-seller in previous years.

"What we've seen in the past couple of years is taking our product line and every design has been replaced with new designs, updated images," said John McKinney, director of operations at the Murfreesboro, Tenn.-based company. "We're using creative designs on the logos, new colors, and where it used to be basic black, burgundy and navy, now we're going into reds, greens, purples, oranges."