A message from Geni Hulsey, president of the Church Bookstore Network:

By now, most of you have begun to receive your Christmas merchandise. I was in the backroom of our church store this week and our manager's office looked like an early version of The Night Before Christmas.

I can remember well every year I would ask, "Did I really order this much stuff?" I would look around the store and wonder where we would put it all.

With that in mind, let me suggest that this is a great time of year to do two things: One, surprise your customers with a gift sale—and rid yourself of anything that looks like spring or summer. And, two, do book returns.

It seems that returning books is one of the best kept secrets in this business, yet it is one of the best business strategies available to the retailer. Almost all Christian publishers allow for a percentage of returns each year, and in the past few years, many of them have begun paying for the return freight.

CBA Chairman-elect George Thomsen will be among the speakers at a regional meeting, Monday, Oct. 19, at Cottonwood Church in Los Alamitos, Calif. He is manager of the award-winning Harvest Store at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, Calif.

Topics for the event will include "Retail Essentials-Developing a Bookstore," "Building and Maintaining a Volunteer Team" and "Merchandising Your Store."

Contact Cottonwood Bookstore Manager Rose Seeley at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or call 714-947-5356.

by Terri Wettle

If you are looking for an idea that can enhance the sales of your church bookstore while enriching the lives of some in your congregation, consider hosting a Secret Sisters program for the ladies of your church.

Popular in many churches for building relationships, the Secret Sisters program involves women who want to participate by drawing the name of another lady within the church, committing to pray for her and anonymously blessing her with small gift items for a specified amount of time. The exchanged names of each are kept confidential until a special get-together formally closes the program and participants get to meet their new friends.

It's that simple. Each participant decides on the type of gift to give to her secret sister, the number of times that gifts are given, the method of getting the gift to the secret sister and the amount of money that is spent. It becomes a very personal matter, one that the women take seriously and spend time in prayer to hear from God about for their sisters.

CD and DVD recordings of sermons can be a big draw for church stores-but they can also be a headache for stores that are not organized well enough to handle them, keeping customers waiting and tying up staff time. To ease the flow for worshipers wanting to pick up a copy of the latest message after the service, speedy duplication processes need to be arranged with the relevant media department in the church, and current and previous messages should be clearly identified to help shoppers find what they are looking for quickly.

Reference books don't seem to sell well; should we just forget about them?

I've always felt that the money spent on good reference books was worth every penny (or should I say dollar). A good bookstore is built on every area of study. Reference books should be solid, extensive enough to fit the needs of your church's membership and up to date.

Just keeping an outdated reference book to fill shelf space does no one any good, though. Do your research and find good, affordable books that are easy to use and fit your needs.

Got a question for Betty Bookstore? Write to her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Many of the first-time visitors to your church who drop in to the bookstore may have some sort of belief in God, but they are unlikely to claim allegiance to any particular form of faith.

They are the "Nones," whose growth is noted as "a national phenomenon" in a new study by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

According to American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population, 34 million American adults do not identify with any particular religious group. They hold a variety of beliefs in God, however, from theism to atheism-though the largest group (59%) is agnostic or deist. They are "simply more likely to be skeptics" and are not particularly "partial" to New Age thinking.

Are savings off the regular retail price a feature at your store? How do you determine what level of discount to offer, and to whom is it available? Everyone or just full-time staff? What has worked and what hasn't?

Share your experiences, ideas and insights with others at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Starting in October, The Church Bookstore Newsletter will be published twice a month, on the second and fourth Wednesdays.

"Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I believe in your commands."
Psalm 119:66, New International Version