ABA bookstores starting to 'get' Inspirational...I said 'starting'.

One of the fun, yet expensive parts of our job is hunting for inspiration in bookstores large and small. Rarely do we come away from a Barnes & Noble or Borders without some new cover ideas, trim sizes, and other visual treatments for books we have in development. I say expensive because I can't remember half the ideas I had an hour ago, so that means I'm having the nice clerk bag up my inspiration in a doggie book bag.

The funny thing is, even though Hungry Planet books are mainly found in the Christian Living or Self Help sections, we don't go into those stacks for inspiration, just to monitor who's face out, featured, and what they're running low on from HP.

**Disclaimer- My wife and I buy all our books from local CBA retailers. We know the store managers by name. If they don't have what we're wanting or have ever heard of it, we order it on line. We also don't buy used books to read, unless they're out of print or we're merely using them for research. When I say research, I mean if we're thinking about doing a book on teens and their relationship with their parents, we might buy every book on the subject to see what's out there and if there's a better alternative already out there. New book purchases keep our lights on. Used ones don't. Same for other authors and publishers. I've bought our last two cars online. We buy everything online...except books. Support your local 'small box' bookseller! End disclaimer**

Today's trip to the B&N at Opry Mills (next to the Grand Ole Opry for you country music fans) was a double whammy of excitement.

First off, featured top shelf, face out with four other selections was the HP book, The Gospel Unplugged by Rich Wagner. This book came out with little fanfare last summer but has had some killer reviews and is starting to pick up steam. Rich is one of our authors that reminds me of Oswald and C.S. Lewis (one of his favs) in classic writing style but he tackles meaty topics in a very accessible way. TGU is a deep deviotional of 20+ CCM songs from various artists using the lyrics of each song as sermon-concentrate. Rich just adds water.

Second but (sorry Rich!) more importantly, I couldn't find any of our Young Adult books in the Christian Living section. Not surprising really, since ABA bookstores do an awful job with Christian books. When they use categories, they're akin to Library of Congress classifications in stead of demographical or topic need. But most often, the entire section is alphabetical by author. Ugh.

Oh well, I thought, proceeding back to the Children's section to look for books for my 5 month old daughter (read: drool-proof.) I occassionally glance through the Young Adult section back there, finding 90% fiction and the only non-fiction being O'Reilly Factor for Kids, Chicken Soup for the Bulemic Teenage Soul (et al), and the obligitory 'Dr. Phil's son wrote a book so we must stock it' placement.

But lo and behold, someone at B&N has seen the light! Sitting right next to the Teen Fiction was "Teen Inspirational"! Of course, there were all the ABA no brainers (Left Behind for Teens, Melody Carlson fiction, etc.) but our books were there as well. Very cool that they're starting to get it.

So Barnes and Noble and Books-a-Million have figured it out teens don't browse alphabetically spine out in the Christian Living section. Hoo-aah!! Could Borders be close behind? {nudge, wink wink, say-no-more}

By the way, any retailers reading this should immediately move The Gospel Unplugged out of the book section and merchandise it in the Christian music section. Don't let the alphabet and the medium keep you in a box or that box you find your retail business in just might be six feet under.