HIGH SPIRITS: The Good Book
Aitken, Jonathan
HIGH SPIRITS JONATHAN AITKEN The Good Book WELCOME TO THE MILITARY industrial evangelical bookselling complex" was the greeting I received from the well-known Christian author Philip...
...phone...
...I insisted that I was not some sort of biographical dermatologist and that the warts, even when they translated into hilarious anecdotes, were relatively rare...
...Colson's journey from these two polarized ends of the spiritual compass has been so authentic that when told as a real life biographical story it amounts to what we Brits call "a rattling good yarn...
...On the seventh Sunday after `Trinity I was to be found in the pulpit of Grace Episcopal Church, Colorado Springs, delivering sermons at the 8 A.M., 9 A.M., and 11 A.M...
...A book launch at the CBA convention should get an author off to a flying start, especially if the roll-out process is as amusingly unconventional as mine was...
...Changing the metaphor, he compared dissection by an author with medical surgery...
...Colson was in a puckish if not paranoiac mood...
...Let's start with the mechanics...
...Christian bookselling is of more than passing interest to your High Spirits columnist these days because I have just published a biography of an iconic figure in this world with the title Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed (Doubleday...
...If my book enjoys any sort of success, much of the credit will go to the word-of-mouthers and all of the glory should go to God...
...Such Christian commercialism is beyond parody and way beyond caustic comparisons with the story of Jesus driving out the moneychangers in the temple...
...Back on the convention floor of the Inter-national Christian Retail Show the farthings or rather the dollars of dealmaking were flowing fast as 12,000 book buyers from shops all over the country toured the publishers' stands...
...In the spirit of reconciliation, Colson ended his talk by assuring everyone present that author and subject of A Life Redeemed were still close friends...
...The big chains such as Barnes & Noble or Borders, not to mention supermarkets like Wal-Mart, now take spiritual titles extremely seriously...
...Indeed the signs and portents from the CBA convention suggested that it is right up there with a chance of best-sellerdom...
...At the end of the day I suspect that the real impetus to good book sales, whether of secular or spiritual titles, comes not from reviewers or radio stations but from the greatest source of all recommendations—good old-fashioned word of mouth...
...Christian radio plays an important part in Christian bookselling...
...This prospect, which will consume much of my energy in the coming weeks, has prompted the question: What makes a good (and good-selling) Christian book...
...Having a warts and all biography written about you is right up there with those experiences," he declared...
...Book sales were highly gracious too...
...His earlier books include Nixon: A Life...
...I recalled that the phrase "warts and all" was first coined by Oliver Cromwell as he sat for the 17th-century portrait artist, Sir Peter Lely: "Paint me as I am, Master Lely, roughnesses, blemishes, warts, strengths and all that you see in me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it...
...Thirty years on from his jail sentence, which ended in 1975, Colson has built a revered prison ministry—Prison Fellowship—which operates in every state in the United States and in 105 countries overseas...
...Unusually, both author and subject turned up J O N A T H A N A I T K E N for a 7 A.M...
...SEPTEMBER 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 49...
...CHURCH BOOKSHOPS ARE A GROWING FORCE in the marketplace...
...For just as last year's Mel Gibson film, The Passion of the Christ, spawned huge sales of books on the same subject, so this year's leading Christian film, a $175 mil-lion remake of C.S...
...services, while at the midmorning coffee break between ten and eleven fled a lively theological Q & A session in a newly built church hall...
...But he is one of several comparable writers whose books are bought by millions, among them Philip Yancey, Charles Colson, and Bruce Wilkinson...
...These include the Wal-Marts and the Safe-ways, but more surprisingly they also include big churches and big Christian ministries with the muscle to place bulk orders and make discount offers with which Mom and Pop bookstores cannot easily compete...
...He told the assembled throng that he had been through the fire of Watergate, the hell of a prison sentence, and the dreams of active duty with the Marines...
...launch breakfast in Denver attended by booksellers and journalists...
...For He alone had the power to transform the hatchet man of Watergate to the honored Christian leader he has become...
...It's like going off to the operating room when they give you one of those surgical gowns that is fine in the front but leaves you embarrassingly exposed in the back...
...The growing link between Christian books and 48 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2005 Christian films is likely to be a further engine of expansion in this $4-billion-a-year industry...
...We were settling down for signing sessions at our respective publishers' stands in the Denver Convention Center at what used to be called the annual convention of the CBA or Christian Booksellers Association...
...Let's hope it sells books too...
...The most successful contemporary Christian author currently on their shelves is Rick Warren, whose lifestyle guide The Purpose-Driven Life has so far achieved sales of 23 million copies...
...HIGH SPIRITS J O N A T H A N A I T K E N The Good Book W ELCOME TO THE MILITARY industrial evangelical bookselling complex" was the greeting I received from the well-known Christian author Philip Yancey...
...From my conversations with these important customers it appeared that the traditional small outlets of Christian book-selling are facing tough competition from powerful giants...
...Jonathan Aitken, The American Spectator's High Spirits columnist, is author of the new book, Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed (Doubleday...
...Even so I had to dampen down the excitement he had generated over potential rear-view revelations in the book...
...Lewis's Narnia classic The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has triggered a boom in Narnia-based publications already on display at stand after stand at the Denver convention...
...I am currently giving inter-views at the rate of three or four stations a day and have really been enjoying my sessions at the microIt appeared that the traditional small outlets of Christian bookselling are facing tough competition from powerful giants...
...But I can report that the pews of Grace were full (800-900 worshippers attended the morning services) and the parishioners were exuding so much grace that I only had one question on what were delicately described as "current Anglican controversies...
...The change of nomenclature seemed all too appropriate in view of the number of salesmen purveying wares such as "spiritual candy," "The Jesus Diet," and even "scriptural license plates for motor-cycles...
...As of this year it has been renamed the International Christian Retail Show...
...One sometimes gets the impression these days that Episcopalian churchesare notable for empty pews and schismatic battles over the appointment of gay bishops...
...Instead of the short soundbites and aggressive questioning that are typical of secular radio, interviewers from these stations tend to be discursive and so genuinely interested in the book that they stay with an author live on air for 30 minutes or more...
...Thanks to the fame of my subject, much boosted by the recent Deep Throat revelations and renewed interest in Watergate, the timing of my book could not have been better...
...The excesses of spiritual retailing notwithstanding, there is a publishing phenomenon on the march in today's brave new world of Christian bookselling that goes largely unreported in secular newspapers...
Vol. 38 • September 2005 • No. 7
