From Dan Edelen, via Justin Taylor's blog "Between Two Worlds"
The Truth about Christian Bookstores
Link to the online version
As someone who worked for two years back in the 80s as an assistant manager/book buyer/Bible buyer/music buyer for two Christian bookstores, I know the behind-the-scenes realities. I know where the closets are that hold the industry skeletons, and I can tell you why things are the way they are.
I wanted to write about this topic a couple months ago when Frank Turk talked about Christian bookstores (at a link I can no longer locate), but [1] Tim Challies’ focus on the issue of Christians buying retail from other Christians (particularly from mom and pop Christian bookstores) made this post essential.
So this post is about a few truths that I know about the business, plus I’ll ask a disturbing question at the end that I’ve been unable to shake.
1. It’s impossible for mom and pop Christian bookstores to make money selling just books, Bibles, and CDs.
The only lamentations that rival Jeremiah’s are those of Christians complaining about the black velvet paintings of Jesus, the WWJD? trinkets, the Precious Moments figurines, the Made-in-China Bible character toys, and all the whatnot that make up the average Christian bookstore.
But here’s a sad reality that most people don’t know: Mom and pop Christian bookstores buy most of their Bibles, books, and music through massive distribution houses that handle all the goods. Or, as we call them, middle men.
In my day, Spring Arbor was the primary Christian goods distributor. Most Christian bookstores, even the large chains, dealt with Spring Arbor on some level. As the buyer of books, music, and CDs at two Christian bookstores (one a mom and pop and one a not-for-profit chain), I dealt with Spring Arbor constantly.
What I learned firsthand is that a book with an MSRP of $10 would almost always cost me $5 to buy. If I sold that book at full retail, I recouped my $5 cost. That left me with $5.
See the problem? My “profit” left me with nothing except the ability to restock that book. No payroll, no building rental costs, no utilities, no nothing.
Which means…
2. Most Christian bookstores must meet their financial obligations by selling high-margin junk.
The WWJD? keychain that sells for $5 but cost the store $1 to purchase is what makes the Christian bookstore world go ’round and ’round.
No trinkets, no Christian bookstore.
Check out the last truth for an even deeper take on this.
3. Economies of scale dictate all those books you hate to see on the shelves.
Sick of seeing Joel Osteen’s grinning face staring back from book covers? Does it seem like every shelf in the bookstore has a book by Max Lucado or Joyce Meyer? Yet you can’t find that translation out of the German of the latest treatise on infralapsarianism?
There’s a reason for that.
When publishers have a mega-author, they can take advantage of a principle that Henry Ford pioneered: When you can make a boatload of something, per unit price drops like a rock.
So because the publisher of the infralapsarian book may only sell a thousand copies worldwide, while Mr. Osteen sells bazillions, economies of scale will tell you that the publisher won’t be offering much margin on it. Therefore, the bookstore is loathe to buy it when they can offer the high-margin Osteen book.
And since no one wants to go out of business, the bookstore rushes for the higher margin item and ignores the treatise you’re dying to read (and think that every Christian worth his salvation must be dying to read as well).
Of course, the very fact that the publisher printed up a bazillion of Osteen also hints that the Christian bookstore will be able to push a lot of Mr. Bright White Teeth’s books anyway. That explains why your local Christian bookstore is mostly stocked with bestsellers. You know, the books you, the discerning reader, wouldn’t touch for fear of having to explain yourself on Judgment Day.
It also explains another strange phenomenon…
4. So what’s up with all those cheap books by dead guys?
Well, let’s hear it for at least one glint of hope in all this. Many outstanding books by deceased authors exist in the public domain. This enables publishers to get around the sticky issue of paying royalties to authors and their estates.
A. W. Tozer is a classic example of this. He signed away all his books except for The Knowledge of the Holy, which, as many keen observers will note, is one of the only books of Tozer’s that’s handled by a secular publishing house. It also explains why that book, as slim as it is, costs a small fortune compared with Tozer’s other output.
And it also explains why Tozer, who has been dead since 1963, seems to have 800 books on the market. Publishers have free reign to repackage his old material any way they wish, so they keep regrouping his writings and calling them “new” books. Such is the case with many long-dead authors whose works are in the public domain. Publishers are free to jigger their output any way they wish and sell the “Frankenstein” book as something new. Publishers can sexy-up the titles, too, so that a book that 75 years ago was titled An Examination of the Tithe and Its Meaning for Our Times can be repackaged as Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters: How to Make Millions by Tithing. These books, while not bestsellers, are incredibly cheap to print, so they make money.
It all makes great business sense.
Still, for the mom and pops, even this won’t help because…
5. The big chain Christian bookstores that we love to hate can buy directly from the manufacturer much of the time. Mom and pop? Almost never.
When you’re a Family Christian Stores or Lifeway, you can negotiate material costs directly with manufacturers. Your buying clout means you get Osteen’s latest for $5 a unit and can sell it at a discount price of $18, while the mom and pops get it at $12 a unit and are forced to sell it at the MSRP of $25.
In short, mom and pop can’t compete on price and go out of business.
And I’m not even looking at the devastation wreaked by the push of Christian publishing houses into Wal-Mart and other spaces. For the mom and pop, fighting Family Christian Stores is hard enough, but when the crew from Bentonville encroach on your turf…well, you better have a different source of income for retirement than your bookstore.
Here’s the wackier outcome: Even the big Christian chains are finding it harder to compete against secular retailers. So they load up on black velvet paintings of Jesus standing at the door and knocking while their floor space dedicated to books and Bibles shrinks even more.
One other trend to note is that more and more churches have their own bookstores that are often run with no pretenses to making money. Sometimes they are even staffed by volunteers. So now churches are turning on mom and pop stores, too.
In short, it’s capitalism at work, pure and simple. Market forces are market forces. Goodbye, mom and pop.
Sure, some small towns still have that ancient Christian bookstore with the faded copy of The Purpose Driven Life at full MSRP sitting in the store window, but not for long. Internet bookstores are putting those folks out of business, too. No amount of Precious Moments figurines is going to stem that tide.
Challies’ post has a number of good comments from people lamenting this loss. Tim asks whether we should be throwing our business to the mom and pops out there.
It’s a tough call. While I agree that Christians should try to give business to other brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t those other brothers and sisters in Christ have to be competitive? I know that, as a businessman myself, my rates have to reflect what the market will bear or else I can’t compete, either. For that reason, I must adapt.
As I was thinking about this issue of the dying Christian bookstore, I had a startling question arise. It may be a foolish question. It’s definitely a dangerous one. No matter the case, I have to offer to you:
If God is sovereign (and we all believe He is), and He is the one who raises up and casts down, what does this say about the reality of the death of the small Christian bookstore?
I don’t like that question, do you? But it’s a question that must be asked nonetheless.
Comments are open and your thoughts are highy welcome. ****End of article
