OK gang, its time for a reality check. Obviously some of us are very new to the Christian Publishing industry – and others have been around it a very long time. I surprised myself when I figured out that I have been working in this industry for more than 20 years, and attended my first CBA Convention in 1981.

MYTH: CBA is the Christian Publishing industry.

FACT: ECPA is the Evangelical Christian Publishing Association. CBA is an association for book/gift store owners that has nothing to do with the publishing of Books. ECPA publishes books for the CBA – got it?

MYTH: Christian publishers determine what sells in the CBA industry.

FACT: The Gatekeepers of the industry are CBA members – Christian Booksellers Association. Bookstore owners used to be mom and pop organizations. Now more and more belong to the Parable Group, Family Book Stores, or others organizations, whose buyers/marketing team determines what goes in to the bookstores. A whole other area of discussion in all of this equation should be Distribution Channels of books – but we’ll save that for another time.

MYTH: If I can just get a Christian Publisher to publish my (true-to-life, racy, smut language, sex-filled, 3-dimensional BC "before Christ" story) lots of people will stand in line to buy it.

FACT: If such a book were to get make it to the shelves of a CBA store, it would only take 1 grandma buying the book for her precious daughter or granddaughter to open it and see your "language" and run screaming back to the bookstore owner –henceforth both you and your writing would be blackballed from the CBA market. Go talk to your bookstore owner–ask InterVarsity and several others publishers about what happened to them. Numerous stories have surfaced through the years about what the "GATEKEEPERS OF THE INDUSTRY" will allow on their bookshelves.

MYTH: Well, I’ll just get a secular publisher so it can go into ABA stores.

FACT: And where would your book be shelved? Books are published with very specific genres (see the shelves in a B.Dalton or the listings in the new releases in Publishers Weekly magazine.) IF you talk about God and end up with a gospel message (exception Grisham), your book would most likely end up in the religious section in the back of the store. How many people looking for a "good read" novel go to the back of the store religious section to find their book? Most writers are writing maverick books, not geared to the inherent rules in any genre, therefore they will never find a "fit" for their book.

MYTH: If a non-Christian just read my book, he would see the error of his ways and turn to Christ.

FACT: The Bible says we (personally, not our writing) are to be the salt and light. [Of course we all know the stories where lives have been changed by a book but that is not what we’re talking about here.] A reader would probably THROW your book across the room yelling, why that blankety blank tricked me into reading about God/Christianity and I could care less. How dare my favorite publisher put in all this God stuff – I demand a refund. "Unless the Spirit draws them our efforts are in vain."

MYTH: A Crossover books means from the ABA to CBA marketplace.

FACT: A crossover book generally means a book read and enjoyed by 2 different age-group audiences: (Jonathan Livingston Seagull was a book that delighted both children and adults.)

MYTH: CBA Fiction lists are shrinking.

FACT: The number of new authors in the CBA is shrinking. Why? Christians are hero worshipers like everyone else. They mainly buy books by big names, recognizable authorities, etc.(TEST: HOW MANY BOOKS HAVE YOU BOUGHT IN THE LAST 6 MONTHS BY AUTHORS YOU HAD NEVER HEARD OF – YOU JUST WENT IN THE STORE AND BOUGHT THEIR BOOK?)No one wants to spend $20 on a gamble that a book by a person they have never heard of might actually turn out to be good. A BIG NAME editor at a major publishing house told me at CBA that they have a MEDIUM NAME great author whose books are not doing as well as expected, and so they have had to give the author a co-author with a VERY BIG NAME (and credibility) on the cover of the book, in order to sell the quantity to make it pay.

MYTH: If I can just get someone to publish my book, I know it will be a bestseller, maybe even a movie.

FACT: OK, after your first 1,000 friends and relatives buy your book what is your next marketing angle? Why should a publisher spend $50,000-$150,000 on an unknown writer, sitting in their hideaway typing, not even out speaking or promoting their work and drumming up a following? The big question is: How can YOU guarantee that your book will sell at least 20,000 copies?

I hope that some of these observations are helpful to you. Of course they are open for debate. And yes, its some of the types of things you'd learn in my marketing workshops--but then we go on to talk about how to overcome these seeming obstacles.

--Elaine