CBA 2007: In Search of Emerging Retail
- Posted by scott on February 1st, 2007 filed in Uncategorized, emergent, conversatio, cba 2007
I spent two hours walking the expo floor at the Christian Book Association’s Advance 2007 convention in Indianapolis yesterday afternoon. The convention is designed to connect owners of Christian retail stores with publishers, manufacturers, and consultants; I’m told that many stores rely upon this convention to place all of their “big orders” for the year. Once I walked in, I wasn’t surprised – the convention was huge (and I’m told that the summer convention is twice the size!).
My quest: Find emerging retail!
I walked up and down the grid of exhibitors and scanned literally thousands of book covers, T-shirts, CDs, and stacks of Christian gift wrap. Here’s what I found:
1) Emergent: Brian McLaren’s NKOC and Secret Message in print and audio.
2) Emerging: Michael Frost’s Exiles.
3) Emerging-ish: Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazz and Searching, two “marginalized” copies of Rick McKinley’s This Beautiful Mess, and an ad for Rob Bell’s Sex God (forthcoming).
And that was it. I saw the word “Missional” once (on Frost’s cover), but the words “emerge,” “emerging,” “Emergent” where nowhere to be found. [1]
More on what I did find tomorrow.
[1] There’s a chance that I missed a book or two. But out of thousands of titles, I would have expected more. Also, many of the publishers market “emerging” titles but actively chose not to exhibit them here. Hmm.
CBA 2007: In Search of Emerging Retail
- Posted by scott on February 1st, 2007 filed in Uncategorized, emergent, conversatio, cba 2007
I spent two hours walking the expo floor at the Christian Book Association’s Advance 2007 convention in Indianapolis yesterday afternoon. The convention is designed to connect owners of Christian retail stores with publishers, manufacturers, and consultants; I’m told that many stores rely upon this convention to place all of their “big orders” for the year. Once I walked in, I wasn’t surprised – the convention was huge (and I’m told that the summer convention is twice the size!).
My quest: Find emerging retail!
I walked up and down the grid of exhibitors and scanned literally thousands of book covers, T-shirts, CDs, and stacks of Christian gift wrap. Here’s what I found:
1) Emergent: Brian McLaren’s NKOC and Secret Message in print and audio.
2) Emerging: Michael Frost’s Exiles.
3) Emerging-ish: Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazz and Searching, two “marginalized” copies of Rick McKinley’s This Beautiful Mess, and an ad for Rob Bell’s Sex God (forthcoming).
And that was it. I saw the word “Missional” once (on Frost’s cover), but the words “emerge,” “emerging,” “Emergent” where nowhere to be found. [1]
More on what I did find tomorrow.
[1] There’s a chance that I missed a book or two. But out of thousands of titles, I would have expected more. Also, many of the publishers market “emerging” titles but actively chose not to exhibit them here. Hmm.
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