Christian Retailing

ECPA announces changes to Christian book awards Print Email
Sunday, 12 November 2006 07:00 PM America/New_York

Sales performance is to be factored into the selection of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's (ECPA) new Christian Book of the Year Award, to avoid a repeat of this year's result which saw the prestigious top prize go to a relatively obscure reference work.

The number of copies sold will in the future be combined with judges' opinions of the book's quality in determining the overall best of the six category finalists, ECPA President Mark Kuyper announced last night at the association's Publishing University (Pub U) conference in Chicago.

The first Book of the Year Award in the new annual ECPA publishing prizes-which saw the number of categories cut from 20 to half-a-dozen-caused a surprise when it was announced at the International Christian Retail Show in Denver, in July. It went to Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Baker Academic), which sold just a few hundred copies in the first six months of the year.

Kuyper revealed last night that a survey had found other changes to the awards program-intended to boost awareness and sales of Christian books at retail-had proved successful. Five of the titles saw an increase in sales, with one doubling its numbers from prior to the prize.

Setting the pace for the two-day focus on Pub U's “Publishing in a Digital World” theme, Internet publisher Michael Cader said in his keynote presentation that book publishers needed to radically rethink their strategies and practices for communicating in a digital age.

The founder and creator of Publishers Lunch, an electronic publishing news update and community, said publishers had to focus on creating opportunities for Web visitors to interact and feel involved with content through the use of such things as feedback to blogs.

“We don't know much about dealing directly with consumers,” he said, adding that they needed to be more generous with content. Web users needed to be persuaded to pay attention to a site before they would pay money for what was available there, he added.