Christian Fiction Literature is a rapidly expanding literary field which has developed considerably over the last several years. Originally seen as the “escapist” and “not so serious” little cousin of more serious works on Biblical Theology, Fiction has developed to be so way more than just entertainment. Historians have long recognized that folks learn thru many ways. Reading facts, historic accounts, and most importantly listening to stories. Before writing there were stories, passed from generation to generation. And these stories both entertained, and taught about significant issues such as morals, effects, lessons and history. Prior to radio, tv and the internet, stories were the principle form of entertainment. Whether over the campfire, pantomimes, puppet theatre or Shakespearean sagas, we have appreciated and fallen in love with our storytellers!
In today’s arena of Christian fiction, getting consumers to acknowledge fiction, and how it can both entertain and educate is not a trivial task. This is where pro publicists may be able to assist. A publicist will work in association with the author and the publishing house to help project both the entertainment value of the book, as well as its Biblical and Scriptural worth. Publicists also find it critical to work closely with retailers, helping with the formulation and construction of campaigns that may at last communicate with patrons round the nation. Without the guidance of publicists it is all to straightforward for a retailer to miss the boat and fail to speak the benefit of a book.
We spoke with Rebeca Seitz, publicist and author at GlassRoad Public Relations, who has been liaising directly with the web services team at one progressive retailer’s Christian Fiction group. The retailing organization - deeperShopping Christian Books has created exclusive web content featuring GlassRoad PR’s most recent projects including Sisters Ink Scrapbooking Fiction and Sibella Giorello’s Geologically inspired Thrillers. The retailer and the publicist both agreed that dropping recent releases of Christian Fiction titles into a database isn’t a good way to educate consumers on the benefits of the book. It is their hope that patrons will be able to understand the inducement and the fact that the author wrote the titles - to find out the way in which the author is so electrified by their relationship with the Living God, that they represent that inspiration in the books they create and the stories that they tell.
So just how does one capture the heart of the author when you are explaining and describing their storylines? This isn’t a straightforward task. And as a retailer or a publicist, what weight should be placed on your outline vs the description the actual author would use themselves?
In creating these new web sites, deeperShopping and GlassRoad PR decided to incorporate a number of new Social Networking features. So they added in references to the author’s twitter feeds, flickr photo buckets and their facebook accounts. The result - simply spectacular. Each author has a web portal that features a biography, details of their latest books, and their latest communications from various social networking sites . The retailer even worked out how to integrate YouTube videos into the shopping experience. Now shoppers can get recent info about each workmen latest featured products alongside news from the artists themselves. The project has been a large success and takes retailing to a new level.
Sales in fiction have lifted as a result of this work, in some cases over 200% Due to the extreme success of the project, the retailer was motivated to begin a project to refresh additional content sections of their website and incorporate some of these new technologies and features.
It is our firm opinion that additional members of the Christian Booksellers Association will beging to udnerstand the benefits of social media and will incorporate these features into their retail websites. By 2010 it is expected that this will become standard operating procedure for Christian publishers.
What a tremendously interesting concept!
Correspondant for the International Christian Retail News Network