Voting is now open for the 2010 Christian Small Publisher Book of the Year Award. The competition launched in 2004 to bring attention and awareness to lesser-known books produced by small publishers. There are eight categories open for voting:
Fiction
Biography
Christian Living
Relationships/Family
Bible Study/Theology
Children’s Book 4-8 years
Children’s Book 8-12 years
Young Adult (12+ years).
Voting will remain open until March 31, 2010. Readers can vote online now at www.christianpublishers.net/10votes. Voting on the Book of the Year Award is open through March 31, 2010. The winners will be announced on April 15.
LifePoint Church in Greenville, South Carolina is launching a donation drive to help Christian charities currently serving in Haiti. Relatives of one of LifePoint’s members operate the Jean Cadet Restavek Foundation, a group that serves some of the estimated 300,000 Haitian children enslaved in child labor. The organization’s founder, a former Haitian slave, is currently in Haiti along with several other staffers working to bring relief to the poor people he serves in the wake of the recent earthquake. This donation drive will also support the First Haitian Evangelical Wesleyan Church in Mauldin which needs supplies to send to Haiti. To aid these organizations’ efforts, LifePoint Church is asking the Greenville community to donate the following:
Baby Food
Baby Formula
Non-perishable Food Items
Blankets
All donations may be dropped off at Christian publishing house Ambassador International, located at 427 Wade Hampton Blvd, on the corner of Chick Springs Road, across from CVS. Items will be collected from January 25 until February 5. Donations may be dropped off Monday through Friday between 9am-5pm or on Saturday from 10am-2pm.
Need a little help marketing your Christian book in 2010? Then you won’t want to miss this free teleseminar on January 20 at 7pm EST with marketing expert Sally Stuart. Be a part of this 70-minute presentation by sending Sally your biggest marketing question at AskSallyStuart.com. You will then be registered which allows you to receive a free 23-page chapter from Stuart’s book, Sally Stuart’s Guide to Getting Published. The book is about the business of writing books and your free chapter includes important information on preparing your fiction or non-fiction book manuscript.
If you’re not able to listen to the teleseminar live, everyone who registers will have access to a recording so that you can listen to it on your own time. But if it’s your goal to get published in the Christian market in 2010, tune in to this free teleseminar for some guidance, instruction and motivation that will help you reach your goal.
Make sure you check out Ambassador International’s sale. They’ve drastically lowered the price on five popular titles. Here are the details:
AND if you’re a fan of Christian Publishing on Facebook you’ll have access to a coupon code that will take EVEN MORE off your total during this awesome sale! So whether you need a gift for mom, dad, grandparents or kids, this sale will help you knock out some Christmas shopping without spending much money!
Christian publishing house Thomas Nelson called off its Open House for Christian retailers for the second time in a year. They’re blaming the economy for holding off on the event that was originally supposed to be held at the company’s headquarters in Nashville in April 2009. Earlier this year Thomas Nelson pushed the event to 2010 but has now decided that it will not happen next year either.
Thomas Nelson told ChristianRetailing.com that program would have put too much of a financial burden on the company and on retailers who would have to be away from their stores to attend the open house. The open house idea started in 2008 when Thomas Nelson said it would no longer participate in CBA’s winter show because it would be more cost-effective to instead bring retailers to them. About 100 retailers were invited to Nashville for the open house and all of their expenses were paid for.
After joining the Christian Booksellers Association back in 1978, CBA leader Bill Anderson has ended his more than three decades with the organization, according to a news release issued by the organization. Anderson became president of the Christian retailing association in 1985, leading the Colorado Springs-based group through ups and downs. “Christian retail has been given a high and holy calling, and we must be faithful to God and His Word. CBA plays a vital role in his industry, and the industry has a vital role in the Kingdom,” Anderson said in the CBA statement.
Reigning simultaneously was CBA board chairman Jim Whittaker of New Life Christian Stores. Whittaker said that increased time demands of managing the transition from Anderson to a new director was the reason for his departure. That put chair-elect George Thomsem at the head of the group. Thomsen, along with the board executive committee and staffers will continue CBA’s work and find a replacement for Anderson. Thomsen said told Publisher’s Weekly that a search committee would be created to find a suitable replacement.
Several media outlets, including the Associated Press, are reporting that a North Carolina pastor and more than a dozen fo his church members plan to burn Bibles and Christian books on Halloween. The AP says Pastor Marc Grizzard told WLOS, an Asheville ABC affiliate that the King James version of the Bible is the only one allowed in his church and that other versions are “satanic.”
Pastor Grizzard along with 14 members of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church plan to burn not only copies of the Bible on Halloween, but music and books by Christian authors. Some of the authors pinpointed by the small western North Carolina congregation are by evangelist Billy Graham and best-selling author Rick Warren.
The church’s website is down, apparently because of the increase in traffic they’re experiencing. But other outlets are reporting that the site defends their plans to burn Bibles, saying it’s Biblical. What do you think of this Halloween Bible and book burning?
Author Laken Lovely Wrote Through Greiving the Loss of Her Brother
Today Christian Publishing Tips is excited to introduce author Laken Lovely. Laken’s new book, Through Charlie’s Eyes, published by Ambassador International, will hit store shelves on October 30, the day her brother Charlie would have turned 17. Laken shares the power writing can have to heal a heart and work through grief.
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Writing has been proven to be a very powerful therapeutic tool. In fact, therapeutic writing has helped even people that don’t necessarily enjoy writing cope with their emotions and life situations.
In my personal experience, I have found that writing as you move through the grieving process can be very difficult and emotional, but it is also extremely therapeutic and sometimes comforting.
My life changed dramatically when my little brother, Charlie, was diagnosed with leukemia the day after he turned sixteen. Sixty-two days later, he passed away.It was devastating.
The day after Charlie’s services were held, I pulled out his composition notebook he had been writing in since his diagnosis. I also started watching hours of footage of Charlie in the hospital. You see, I had made a promise to Charlie. No matter what the outcome of the situation, life or death, I would help Charlie tell his story to inspire and give strength to others. If he lived, we would compile all of the footage of his hospital experience and create a documentary.If he passed away, I would write his story for him.
It took me about six months to finish writing his story, officially titled, Through Charlie’s Eyes. In the process of writing my little brother’s story, I went back through and re-hashed every moment of the emotional roller coaster ride his cancer diagnosis took us on, but this time, I was experiencing all of it from his perspective. There were times in this writing process when my tears soaked the paper I was writing on and the pages in Charlie’s journal. However, by the end of the process, I felt even closer to Charlie than I had ever felt before. I had gained a better understanding of this event that had dramatically changed the path of all of our lives, Charlie’s, our families and mine.
I don’t believe that the grieving process ever really ends. A day will never come when you don’t miss your loved ones that have already passed on.However, acceptance and understanding can help you keep moving forward with strength and hope and writing can help give you that.
The following is a book trailer about Through Charlie’s Eyes.
You don’t need a big publisher behind you or even printed pages to get your children’s book in the hands of young readers. A new product is helping little-known authors get their books read by thousands of kids– just as long as their parents own an iPhone. President of FrogDog Media, Graham Farrar, knows too well the allure an iPhone can have on a child. “I have a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter,” said Farrar in a Publisher’s Weekly article. “and we used to bring books for her on airplanes and road trips. Then my wife and I both ended up getting iPhones, and my daughter wanted to play with the phone. At first it was video games and Baby Einstein, which was fine in small doses, but not what I wanted her to spend her time with. But convenience was winning out over content.”
That’s how the idea for his product, iStoryTime, came about. So far there are about ten ebooks available for download as an app. Many more are on the way. The price per download is just $1.99 which is part of the reason why company officials are sticking to lesser-known authors.
According to reports, FrogDog buys rights for electronic mobile distribution which means that authors are still able to sell that same book to a print publisher. “We’re trying to keep the price point down, which lends itself to people without an established market,” Farrar told PW. And for many parents, $1.99 is a small price to pay to keep their children entertained, while still helping them establish a love of books.
From September 10-13 133 cities around the world held events to raise money for local charities. It’s called Twestival Local and it was started about a year ago by some Twitter users in London. Christian Publishing Tips was pleased to support the Greenville Twestival by donating autographed Christian books by bestselling authors for the silent auction. All of the money raised by the Greenville Twestival supported the Miracle Hill Boys’ Shelter, a Christian organization that cares for abused and neglected boys. Christian Publishing Tips is thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this great event that supported a wonderful cause.
AND if you’re a
Christian publishing house
You don’t need a big publisher behind you or even printed pages to get your children’s book in the hands of young readers. A new product is helping little-known authors get their books read by thousands of kids– just as long as their parents own an iPhone. President of FrogDog Media, Graham Farrar, knows too well the allure an iPhone can have on a child. 
