items of interest

with contributions from John Mark Eberhart, Bill Lodge, David Hammer, Scott Hannaford

"At BookExpo America , held this year at the Los Angeles Convention Center [in early June], there was plenty of talk about the importance of spirituality in Americans' lives. And in their books, too. Consider this: Here's and industry that isn't doing so well. Publishing has been plodding this year. But titles concerning spirituality are doing nicely. So said the American Bible Society, headquartered in New York City. And NavPress of Colorado Springs, Colorado. And Paraclete Press of Orleans, Massachusetts. ...

"According to [Sarah] Snelling, [Sales Director for NavPress], Christian literature in particular used to be marginalized—not entirely as a result of rejection by the larger culture, as some would claim, but because of its own preferences. The most significant development right now in Christian publishing is that we're trying to publish to a more diverse audience. There are a lot of pop culture twists ... [and] we want to be part of the conversation that's going on. ... So we're doing things like looking at the Matrix movies and seeing how many spiritual themes are in there. ... In the greater culture, there's a great interest in spirituality and in Christianity, and we want to be able to speak to that.' ...

"Snelling believes books with such broad appeal must be developed if spiritual publishing is thrive thrive in its rebirth. 'If we marginalize ourselves, we'll just end up being a smaller and smaller group of people who have nothing relevant to say. Since we feel like we do have something so relevant to say, we want to interact with the popular culture.' "

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