Cook Partners

Learning from Other Booksellers

How might you benefit from visiting religious bookstores of other traditions? Christian Book Shop Talk, a Canadian blog for evangelical booksellers, notes:

Visiting different kinds of stores can be (a) fascinating — to see so many products we don’t know exist, (b) intimidating — the feeling you get when you’re in a different kind of church, (c) humbling — to realize how much of religious publishing we  really don’t know all that much about, (d) eye-opening — to discover what it must feel like when people outside our comfortable circle find themselves in our stores.

Latin America: SEPA Launches Reading Campaign

The Spanish Evangelical Products Association (SEPA) announced it will launch a reading campaign at Expolit 2009. According to the press release in Spanish, the campaign arose

... out of a need for a strategic plan to promote reading in the countries where [SEPA member publishers] are working to distribute Christian literature in Spanish. The campaign must be done with interest and passion, since the books we distribute have to do with God's Word, its values, and the guidance it gives us for full and meaningful lives.

..., We want to communicate that literature is valuable in itself, that good books entertain us, give us enjoyment, information, motivation, teaching, and should be an important part of our lives.

SEPA has created promotional materials for distributors and bookstores to use in the continent-wide campaign.

Tagged Tanakh, or Torah 2.0

The Jewish Daily Forward reports on an effort to

... publish the Jewish Bible, or Tanakh, as an electronic, online text, integrating the original Hebrew with [an] English translation and selected commentaries. But the most radical part of the project is an ambitious plan to make the text of the Tanakh into an open platform for users of all stripes to collectively erect their own structure of commentary, debate and interpretation, all linked to the text itself. The publishers hope that the project will radically democratize the ancient process of Talmudic disputation by bringing it into cyberspace.

The project is an initiative of the Jewish Publication Society.

Former Slumdog Lauds Books

Sudip Mazundar writes in Newsweek recalling how as a youth he left home and then "spent the next five years moving from one slum to another, always a step ahead of the police":

I might have spent the rest of my life in the slums or in prison if not for books. By the time I was 6, my parents had taught me to read and write Bengali. Literature gave me a special refuge. With Jack London (in translation) I could be a brave adventurer, and with Jules Verne I could tour the world. I worked my way up to Balzac, Hemingway and Dostoevsky. I finally began teaching myself English with the help of borrowed children's books and a stolen Oxford dictionary. For pronunciation I listened to Voice of America broadcasts and the BBC World Service on a stolen transistor radio. I would get so frustrated I sometimes broke into sobs.

With persistence Mazundar was able to master English and become a journalist, but he recognizes that

... most slum dwellers never escape. Neither do their kids ... slums exist, in large part, because they're allowed to exist. Slumdogs aren't the only ones whose minds need to be opened up.

As Christian publishers, what should our response be?

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction ...  keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. (2 Tim. 4:1-2, 5)

The World of Books in 2020

What will the world of books look like in 2020? Qué Leer (What to Read), a magazine in Spain, tackles the topic by interviewing six international publishing industry experts. Among their statements:

• Many expect sales of digital content will surpass traditional book sales in 2018, based on the results of a study conducted with 1,000 book professionals last year. 
• A PricewaterhouseCoopers study cited by Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, predicts annual growth of 2 percent in the German communication industry until 2012, with books earning approximately 2.1 billion euros compared to the Internet (9.5 billion euros) and television (9.1 billion). 
• The book will not disappear. Cheng Sanguo, founder of the China Book Business Report and now a publishing consultant, put it this way: “Printed media is grass, online media are sheep, mobile media are wolves. The wolves stalk the sheep and the sheep live off the grass, but everyone knows that the end result is not simply a plain full of wolves, but rather an ecological system, balanced between the three.”
• Expect changes to continue. According to a press release from the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), creative industries are among the most dynamic sectors in world trade, almost doubling in size from1996 to 2005.
• "Bookstores must change: rethinking their use of space, displays, lighting, supply chains, competition with other shops ... In 10 years bookstores must become multi-product spaces," says Alberto Rollo, literary director for the Feltrinelli media outlet chain. Bookstores must be ready to offer digital and print products indiscriminately.

Read the article in Spanish here.

David C Cook Wins 14 ADDY ® AWARDS

David C Cook won 14 ADDY® awards at the annual creative contest held by the Pikes Peak Advertising Federation, part of the American Advertising Federation. Book covers that won awards include those for the following titles: Zora & Nicky, Wounded, Saying Yes, O Little Town, Deliver Us from Me-Ville  and Illegitimate.  Crazy Love won recognition for both its cover and website. Cook also received recognition for its VBS packaging, catalogs, a brochure, and our booth at the 2008 International Christian Retail Show.  

"Sometimes It's Hard to Be the Invisible Artist"

When you pick up a book, do you think about the designer? Sue Campbell speaks about the impact of good text design:

In his book, The Pencil, Henry Petroski says, “ This ubiquitous and deceptively simple object . . . is so familiar as to be a virtually invisible part of our general culture and experience.” This is true of text design too. If you agree that good design gets out of the way of the meaning of the words and is invisible to the reader—then the designer has done her job well. It’s not as easy as it sounds. One shouldn’t forget that fonts and the way they are used also convey meaning—beyond that of the words themselves. The best design enhances and amplifies the message of the words, without attracting undue attention. (Sometimes it’s hard to be the invisible artist—but I persevere.)

Now, with an illustrated history, or a coffee table book, I get to shine a little more—have more fun in the way the material is presented. I still have to dance carefully not to tread too much on the author’s story, after all; it’s their story not mine. A good design of this sort is as interesting to look at as it is to read, but the complexity of the design mustn’t be a deterrent to the reading and understanding of the material. And still I must take into account the subject matter and expectations of the reader of said subject. Surprise them? Sure, but not shock them out of the reading/enjoyment/comprehension with something too off-the-wall crazy, (unless it’s called for in the genre).

One functional consideration is that page design has EVERYTHING to do with the navigation, flow, and pacing of a book. Don’t believe it? Look some illustrated books—does your eye flow naturally from object to text, section to section, page to page? Or does it get stopped and thrown off by unfortunate placement and badly interrupted text flow? In either case, thank the designer.

Hmm. Maybe I should write a book?

To read more on what Campbell has to say about color, aesthetics, and the book design process, see this interview.

Read an E-Book Week

Did you know that "Read an E-Book Week" will be celebrated March 8 to 14, 2009? E-book readers such as the Kindle or Sony Reader may still be unavailable in your country, but e-books and e-book platforms are growing. People are reading and consulting e-books on their computers and mobile phones. And even print publishers are offering e-book excerpts (or even whole books) to stimulate interest in their catalogs. How can you benefit from this trend?

Turkey: Christian Book Stores Vandalized

Christian World News reports,

Following threats from Muslim nationalists, a Turkish Bible Society bookshop in the southern city of Adana was vandalized for the second time in a week on Thursday.

Security camera footage shows two youths attacking the storefront of the Soz Kitapevi bookshop, kicking and smashing glass in both the window and the door. The door frame was also damaged.

... The bookshop has received threats from both Muslim hardliners and nationalists. Last November, a man entered the shop and began making accusations that the Soz Kitapevi bookshop was in league with the CIA, saying, "You work with them killing people in Muslim countries, harming Muslim countries."

... The attacks are another example of the animosity that Turkish Christians have faced recently, especially the small Protestant community.

Please pray for all involved in literature ministry in Turkey and other places where Christians face persecution.

Is Marketing Evil?

Is marketing evil? That's what Seth Godin asks on his blog, where he adds,

Marketing works.

If you spend time and money (with skill) you can tell a story that spreads, that influences people, that changes actions. Marketing can cause people to buy something that they wouldn't have bought without marketing, vote for someone they might not have considered and support an organization that would have been invisible otherwise.

If marketing doesn't work, then a lot of us are wasting a great deal of effort (and cash). But it does.

So, does that make marketing evil?