In the bookselling business, few sections rely on handselling so heavily as religion. And the word is spread in the other direction, too—religion sections lean heavily on customer recommendations for inventory decisions.
"When it comes to religion, people want basic text. They don't want a spin," says John Valentine, co-owner of the Regulator Bookshop in Durham, N.C., a store known for its strong religion section. "If it seems manufactured by the media, there will be a bit of skepticism about it."
Skepticism or not, sales of religion books are downright brisk these days. PW set out to discover how general-interest independent booksellers buy, stock and sell religion titles by surveying a handful of healthy indies.
Regulating Religion Sales
"Religion is something we've very strong with, particularly since September 11," says Valentine. In fact, religion sales at the Regulator increased 16% in 2001 over 2000 levels. "People are looking for spiritual guidance. Several books on the Qur'an and Islam became bestsellers [after the attacks]. We stock across the board—we're Main Street USA, a little bit of everything for everybody."
With two universities (Duke and UNC) within rock-throwing distance, the Regulator benefits from required reading lists at the universities' religion departments—not to mention books by their professors. Local professor/authors provide a built-in customer base, Valentine says. Duke professors whose books have done well at the store include Richard Lischer, Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery (Broadway, 2002) and Carol Meyers, editor of Women in Scripture (Houghton Mifflin, 2000).
Another sales spiker working in the store's favor is controversy, that staple of higher learning. "We had a wonderful controversy going on all summer here about Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations, which is required reading for all freshmen at the University of North Carolina," Valentine says. The book, by Michael Sells (White Cloud Press), claimed prime real estate in-store when it was featured in the Regulator's September 11 section, 12 linear feet of shelving that spotlighted about 30 titles.
As a strong indie, the Regulator is serviced mostly by sales reps, Valentine says, though it also buys through all the major distributors. "We can quickly see if there's a bump in sales and interest and respond to it, particularly with Koen up in New Jersey." Top reps, according to Regulator buyers, are Wayne Donnell of the Donnell Group, Bill Verner of the Consortium and Andrea Tetrick of Publishers Group West, Valentine says, noting that many of the store's best religion titles come from small presses.
"Religion books start slowly because the authors aren't prone to the talk-show circuit," Valentine says. "It's the classics that tend to get bumped up, kind of like children's books. Books that are rushed out to capture a fad or a craving tend to die."
Bestselling authors at the Regulator reflect the store's eclectic, something-for-everyone stance. Among the highest sellers are Thich Nhat Hanh, Karen Armstrong, Rumi, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, John Esposito and Mark Pinsky, whose The Gospel According to The Simpsons (Westminster John Knox, 2001) most likely captured bonus sales due to hometown appeal. Pinsky used to live in Durham and started his book tour in the city, Valentine points out. "It was a crossover from religion to humor, and it was our most interesting twist [in the religion section]. We sold 150 copies of that book."
The Regulator categorizes its religion/spirituality section by religion—"We'll have a Buddhist standing next to a Hindu standing next to a Methodist"—and pays close attention to what its customers want. The store holds several book fairs a year for local synagogues and places heavy orders around the Jewish holidays, says Valentine. "We do thousands of special orders a year. We pay attention to what's popular nationwide, but we really love our clientele, and we listen to them."
Words Worth Buying
Another independent bookstore situated near the halls of learning, Wordsworth of Cambridge, Mass., goes for breadth rather than depth when stocking its religion department. Located in Harvard Square, the store benefits from heavy tourist traffic as well as a highly loyal clientele, manager Sanj Kharbanda tells PW.
"Wordsworth's inventory spans Eastern and Western faiths and includes evangelical titles. "We look at a section and see what we need to have good representation," he says. But there are always exceptions to the stock-shallow rule—like Peter Gomes, a Cambridge local whose several sermon collections sell well at Wordsworth.
"We're not a religious bookstore, so there are things we may not have, such as all the different kinds of Bibles in all the bindings," Kharbanda says. "After September 11, we beefed up our religion inventory and researched more in terms of what to carry. People were asking for it. We definitely rely on customer feedback."
Though Wordsworth is a general-interest store, religion gets prominent space in front of the cash registers and is organized into Eastern, Western and Judaism sections. The Wordsworth staff takes an active role in handselling and doesn't always rely on the "traditional triggers" of publisher marketing or media buzz to get behind a book.
"It could be that we were working on the shelves and decided to take a closer look at a title," Kharbanda says. "Once we get intrigued by it, we make sure it sells well by recommending it and putting it in people's reading stacks."
Reading stacks? The Wordsworth staff knows its clientele so well that many of the customers rely on recommendations for all their purchases. And a dozen or so customers are so regular they have customized reading stacks set aside for them.
"We've created this bond [with our customers] over a long period of time," Kharbanda says. "Some people I send copies to, and others will look through their stacks when they come in." While not all of those privileged readers are "gatekeepers," he notes that many of his most loyal customers are opinion makers—professors, journalists and the like.
As with the other stores PW surveyed, Wordsworth shelves only nonfiction titles in the religion section. If it's fiction—such as the apocalyptic Left Behind series—it gets shelved with fiction, alphabetically by author. Religion authors that sell well for Wordsworth include Surya Das, Ram Das, Pema Chodron, Shunryu Suzuki, C.S. Lewis, Joseph Goldstein, Everett Fox, Rabbi Harold Kushner and Forrest Church, whose book Restoring Faith: America's Religious Leaders Answer Terror with Hope (Walker) still moves off shelves one year after the attack on the World Trade Center, Kharbanda says. Two stand-out authors for the store are Bruce Feiler (Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses, Morrow, 2001), and Karen Armstrong, who serves on the faculty at Harvard.
"Before September 11, Karen Armstrong was a good example of an author we hand-sold," Kharbanda says. "Now everybody knows her name. When there weren't that many good books on Islam, we hand-sold her Islam: A Short History [paper, Modern Library, 2002]."
Powered by Reading Groups
Handselling and a lively reading-group culture have created book meccas in the three "downtown suburban" stores of Anderson's Bookshop, located in the greater Chicago area. "Our clients buy the gamut from inspirational titles to books on the historical Jesus," Mary Yockey, the buyer for all three stores, tells PW. "Walking the Bible was very big, as it was for everyone. Books on Eastern and alternative religions increased notably after September 11, especially Karen Armstrong's Islam: A Short History, which just arrived in paperback."
When making buying decisions, "I look for things along the lines of good, solid inspirational and spiritual-related titles," Yockey says. Customers browsing the stores' 48-linear-foot religion sections will find bestselling titles by Kathleen Norris, the Dalai Lama, Sue Bender, Michael Leach (whose book I Like Being Catholic by Doubleday caught on big with Anderson's Catholic readers), John Shelby Spong and a handful of evangelical authors, including Max Lucado and Philip Yancey.
"We have very active book clubs in the area—over 100 clubs are registered with our store," Yockey says. "They call us as soon as they select a title, and we offer them a 10% discount in addition to other store discounts." Books featured in the reading clubs often generate so much buzz the staff winds up handselling them to other customers. "We constantly have our feelers out," she says. "We watch PW and the Forecasts and other reviews. Customers talk about books, and we pick up on that." Anderson's relies on sales reps for most of its inventory, rather than distributors, Yockey says, and reading copies go a long way in catching the staff's eye: "I'd like to see even more reading copies."
General Spirituality Ranks High
In a two-story, 30,000-square-foot store, a section like religion could easily get lost on the floor. But at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, Calif., religion does well enough that it generates its own sales—without extra attention or handselling from the staff. "Usually the average person is looking for a book they heard about on radio or TV, something popular—it hits them and they want it," head buyer Jodi Kinzler says. "We give the religion section a good space and mingle in a lot of nonbook product. It's well trafficked."
The store makes a high volume of purchases through both publishers and distributors, and Kinzler says the strongest sellers fall in the general spirituality genre. "Best of" books are huge—as is anything by Iyanla Vanzant and Anne Lamott—but books on specific religions don't move as vigorously, she notes.
In keeping with Vroman's focus, the store primarily stocks religion titles from large mainstream publishers, with only a few titles from small presses on the shelves. And since customers generally know what they want, Vroman's takes a hands-off approach to religion: "That's usually a section we don't hand-sell, unless you get an Anne Lamott book," Kinzler says. "I could sell her anywhere."
Changing Hands on Religion
At Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe, Ariz., the biggest sales driver is author events. Since it opened as a tiny bookshop in 1974, Changing Hands has found a market among religion book buyers. Its primary focus—then and now—is Eastern religion and general spirituality, with Buddhism claiming the "most requested" spot. "Our spirituality section runs about 20 cases of books, and that doesn't include books on Hinduism, Sufi, Taoism, etc.," co-owner Gayle Shanks says. "Those titles are pulled out as separate cases."
The sprawling spirituality section, labeled Mind/Body/Spirit, features an eclectic combination of books on miracles, shamanism, chakras, meditation, yoga, bodywork, self-help, health and psychology. Unlike most general-interest bookstores, Changing Hands also sells used books, shelving them alongside frontlist titles in all categories. But of all the religion authors, Pema Chodron sells the best at the store, Shanks says.
Another big seller, Sylvia Boorstein (Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sake, Ballantine, Sept.; see InProfile), will make an appearance at the store in September—just one of two dozen events hosted per month. "We work really hard and have to be extremely aggressive, but we have a very good track record [with events] now," Shanks says. "We do five to seven author events a week, and between three and five of those a month are in religion/spirituality. We've done a lot of large events, and publishers know we can pull them off."
When James Van Praagh (Heaven and Earth: Making the Psychic Connection, S&S, 2001) came to the store last fall, 600 people turned out for the event, lining up as early as 2 p.m. for the 7 p.m. author signing. "He's been here three times, and we sold 197 copies of Heaven and Earth on the day of that [last] event," Shanks says.
Staff picks go a long way in shaping the store's buying decisions. If one of the staff reads a book and really likes it, "we'll order in 10 to 20 copies, knowing that the staff will sell that book to our customers when they come in." Another factor at Changing Hands is an author's track record. Someone like Joseph Goldstein, whose book One Dharma (Harper San Francisco, June) sold very well for the store, will automatically get a healthy buy-in on a new title, Shanks says.
Like many other indies, Changing Hands listens closely to its customers. That's how the store found out about A Course in Miracles (Foundation for Inner Peace, 1992) years ago—and wound up selling hundreds of copies. "My staff has a good relationship with our customers."
Wholesalers who get the most orders from Changing Hands are those that carry a lot of spiritual titles, Shanks says, namely New Leaf, DeVorss and BookPeople. She does purchase from Ingram, but says she prefers to work with smaller wholesalers when she can. "I just like the idea that they're willing to carry a broad range of authors and titles, and I like to support that. They're willing to take risks."
Regardless of how books find their way onto the shelves, once there they get a boost from Changing Hands' Staff Picks program—small sheets of paper that protrude from selected books featuring staff recommendations, accented by shelf-talkers. "We've trained our customers to go look for them," Shanks says. "We must have 400 or 500 of these recommendations in all the sections of the store. As long as we continue selling books, we'll put these in them. It makes a difference between selling two books a month or selling five to 10."
