To that I said, "so you desire to write targeted evangelical, preach-to-the-choir fiction for CBA's core market audience and not for the general market of Christians which is the larger audience?"
That brings me back around to why are there so many Christian distributors. Well actually there is only one. Spring Arbor. Spring Arbor started out as CBA's exclusive distributor then CBA sold Spring Arbor to Ingram. Frustrated (according to several blogs I found which you can google for yourself and find or scroll back through my blogs here and find) MANY CBA affiliated bookstores were LIVID!
You have to remember, part of that fee a publisher pays to CBA ensures that member books are automatically flooded onto member bookstore shelves. Actually in the beginning and even now ONLY CBA member publishers could get into an affiliated Christian bookstores. Duh! That's why CBA was formed so CBA could provide targeted fiction to Baptist Bookstore visitors because the usual fiction often written by authors of faith was too "secular."
When Christian bookstores learned that Spring Arbor would not adhere to their exclusivity rules and would in fact approve non-affiliated Christian work . . . guess what happened? All of a sudden or maybe slowly over time, quite a few OTHER Christian distributors started popping up. Guess who they shop your work out to? Why affiliated Christian bookstores of course and if you're not affiliated with CBA the stores they shop you out to will never take your work. They don't tell publishers this when they sign on or at least that's been my experience. They just take your money and then come back with all kinds of reasons why the "Christian" bookstores they shopped you out to won't take your book. And some of the reasons border on insane. My first publisher was told once by their "Christian" distributor that Family Christian didn't want their book because they didn't like the color blue on the cover?
The solution to the publisher I talked to, before I explained my experiences with "Christian" distributors was to join CBA. It seemed by the time I finished talking to them that they might actually reconsider or at least talk to a few other publishers who've already been this route.
I sure hope so.
Spring Arbor is the official Christian Distributor. They accept ALL work by authors of faith for many different Christian readers. They can get you into ANY Christian bookstore for absolutely free. They can't get you into affiliated bookstores who provide targeted fiction for a very exclusive targeted audience.
Bottom line is that to succeed in publishing as a publisher you better dang well know your market.
Addendum: Interesting comment left on this blog (see comment by clicking) to correct the "insinuation" that CBA owned Spring Arbor. Perhaps I might've been clearer on that but it truly wasn't the point of this blog. That's right. CBA doesn't OWN and never OWNED Spring Arbor though I have in the past written it out like that. Sorry and thanks for clearing that up? Spring Arbor at one time was CBA's exclusive distributor OWNED by someone else I guess. The fact is they were exclusive and didn't provide anything but CBA member books to CBA member bookstores. Several other distributors have tried to pick up where they left off but are failing miserably (oops. That's another opinion I guess.) Spring Arbor is the distributor to the official Christian market but no they can't automatically get you in to affiliated Christian bookstores. But neither can CBA member distributors . . . unless you pay to be affiliated with CBA. ;)
LOL Okay I'll take skewed. Perhaps the Christian Booksellers Association has never OWNED a distributor, Spring Arbor was set up to distribute exclusively CBA member books and not books written by authors of faith.
ReplyDeleteThank-you for confirming that the back-lash from Christian stores came at the stores realizing that NOW they no longer had an exclusive distributor and they'd actually have to LOOK at a book to see if it fit CBA's standard of quality for their core market readers.
Thank you also for confirming that the other distributors that popped up were in fact created to become another Spring Arbor before whoever sold it to Ingram.
And further thank you for confirming that most Christian bookstores as a whole still operate under the mentality that a non-affiliated book doesn't get into a Christian bookstore automatically EVEN if it is approved for distribution to the official Christian market.
And just a thought but if Christian bookstores carried books with a more liberal Christian stance perhaps they might sell them. But since CBA member publishers no their core market readers don't want to read these kind of books and since member books are all you'll find in Christian bookstores, you'll be hard-pressed to find them.
Half the books you say won't sell in your store can't even be ordered because Christian bookstores are only encouraged and I dare say forced to only carry member books as that is part of what member publishers pay for.
Okay for editing purposes, "no their core market readers" should be "know." I love to mess words like this up. LOL
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