Despite reports of the demise of publishing in general, and Christian publishing in particular, book making is a $100 billion per year global industry. So there is still a huge demand for books. Religious books make up $13.9 billion of that, with the majority of those being Christian.
As a reader or author, you probably have a strong preference as to format. Maybe you love hardcovers, or you prefer paperbacks. Or perhaps you are a Kindle addict and love reading books on your phone or a dedicated reading device. Maybe you think, “the future is digital” or “nothing beats a physical book.”
The statistics do not lie. In the USA Trade 37% of all revenue comes from hardbacks, 37% from paperbacks, 7% from ebooks and 7% from audiobooks. The mathematicians among you will notice that 12% is missing from this total, we can only surmise courses may well be a large part of that gap.
When it comes to religious books the picture is very different. Hardcovers accounted for more than 62% of sales, paperbacks 17%, and digital was 11% in total.
Therefore, if you are publishing your own books, it is crucial that you release all three formats, or you will miss out on some customers. You may even find that some of your keenest readers will buy two or more different formats of your book!
But here’s a challenge for all of us. How do we ensure Christians discover good books that will help them at the moment that they need them most. With so many books out there having the support of large commercial organizations, what hope do indie authors have of getting their books in front of potential readers?
We sometimes feel powerless to make a difference. But you would be surprised how much impact a growing community like ours can make in helping algorithms know which books to show which people.
That is what Christian Book Finder is about. How can you help us help all our authors and potential readers?
There is a power in working together. As our virtual bookstore front grows then all participating authors will benefit from the increased attention. If you haven’t already, please submit your book for free or ask an author you know to do so.
Read our books. Stating the obvious, find some books you think you might like here and read them! If you buy a book through one of our links Amazon gives us a small referral fee to help keep this site running.
Restack our books. If you like the look of a book, even if you don’t decide to read it yet, please hit “restack with note” on the book page with a comment on what you like the look of. For example, “this Christian novel looks gripping, maybe I will read it this summer.”
While you are reading a good Christian book please share quotes you like as notes on your profile, this could be as a restack from one of our book pages. Show your readers the highlights of one of our books. And if you notice a good quote shared by someone else hit restack so it spreads more widely.
Review our books. It only takes a small steady stream of reviews posted to Amazon to tell them that a book is worth sending to other potential readers. The single best thing you can do for an author and other Christian readers is to review every book you read on Amazon, on Goodreads, and also on Substack. If you write a review please place a link to it in the comments section on the book’s page.
Recommend our books. Word of mouth still makes a huge difference. Imagine if everyone who read one of our books and liked it told their friends and family about it, or suggested their favorite blogger or podcast host feature it.
Buy our books as gifts for others. If a book has had a big impact on you, why not buy another copy to give to a friend or family member?
Those of us who are authors long for other people to review our books. This is to understand what people think about our work, but also because we know it is the single best way other readers may find our books. We also rejoice when others restack a quote from our books.
But are we all doing these things enough for others? If you are an author now, or hope that one day you might be one, please review unto others as you would have them review unto you.
If you really love Christian books and would like to get ahold of them before they are released, join our book launch team,
Vert disappointed this past week to learn that the data centers are buying up older, rare books, dismantling them and feeding them into the AI models. I guess they figure since the authors are likely dead that they can do this? Ugh. 😩 Thanks for the very interesting stat, especially on Christian/Religious books.