I went to a Family Christian bookstore in Bowie Maryland last night. I hadn’t been there in a long time, and they changed a lot of things. One thing I noticed is that there are a lot FEWER BOOKS! 🙁

It was starting to look more like a gift store than a bookstore. There was a large divider thingie with greeting cards and there was just more….STUFF, but not as many books as I recall their having the last time I went there.

Has anybody else noticed this? Are more Family Christian Bookstores turning into gift shops?

Just wondering….

Any thoughts or comments on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com
www.blackchristianfiction.com

I’m heading to the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) Conference tomorrow! Hopefully, and God willing, I’ll be able to make some great contacts that’ll help me out with my writing. I’ll post a full report on my blog when I return! Or, if I can, I may post blog entries during the conference!

Until next time,
Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com
www.blackchristianfiction.com

Well, during my vacation, I managed to read a couple of books. I also managed to go to a Christian bookstore and a secular bookstore. When I visited the secular bookstore (Barnes and Noble at Southpoint Mall in Durham) I purchased the following titles: Claire Knows Best by Tracey Bateman and Saved Folk In The House by Sonnie Beverly. I don’t believe I’ve included Sonnie Beverly on my Black Christian Fiction site: www.blackchristianfiction.com so I will be adding this author shortly.

I also visited the Family Christian Bookstore in Charlotte North Carolina. This bookstore had a totally awesome Christian fiction section….one of the largest I’ve ever seen in a Christian bookstore! I chatted with one of the associates, telling her that I was an author, and asked for insight as to why they don’t carry category Christian romance titles such as the ones from Steeple Hill Love Inspired. She said they don’t re-stock the shelves monthly, so they would not be able to update the titles in a timely manner. (For those of you who don’t know, Steeple Hill Love Inspired titles are released each month.) They re-stock their shelves quarterly. She also stated that since Steeple Hill is under the Harlequin umbrella, they do not carry them in their store since Harlequin is secular. I reminded her that there were other Christian publishing houses that were owned by secular publishers, like Random House (I believe they own Waterbrook, and they now own Multnomah). She said that this was true, however, in those cases, they usually keep the Christian arm of the publishing business as a totally separate entity, whereas Steeple Hill doesn’t appear to do that. I did tell her that the LI books sold very well, and I told her my recent sales figures! I just wanted to place a bug in their ear about the category romances, hoping to get them to change their minds about carrying the SHLI titles….eventually!

While at the Family Christian Bookstore, I purchased the following titles: Leave It To Claire by Tracey Bateman, A Sounding Brass by Shelley Bates, Violet Dawn by Brandilyn Collins, Web of Lies by Brandilyn Collins, and Thr3e by Ted Dekker. Anybody have any idea why the book title is spelled like this: Thr3e, or why Ted Dekker has the second K in his name smaller than the first K, like this: DEKkER? Just wondered. If anybody has read any of the titles mentioned in the first or third paragraphs, feel free to post comments or drop me a line about how much you liked (or disliked) the titles.

I also visited another Christian bookstore while in Charlotte. New Creation bookstore is large, and they also have a fantastic fiction section. Although they had no category romances, they did have one title published by Steeple Hill Café, which is a women’s fiction single title line by Harlequin. It was nice seeing a Harlequin/SH title at a Christian bookstore. I can’t recall the name of the title or the author. Since I’d already spent enough money on books during our trip, I didn’t bother to spend any money at New Creation!

Read my next blog entry to see what I read while on vacation!

Stay blessed,
Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com
www.blackchristianfiction.com

I wasn’t able to find the books listed in my previous post at the bookstore. Or, I guess I should say that I called three local stores and none of them had those books. Looks like I’ll just have to order them from an online bookstore, have them delivered to my house, and then read them AFTER I get back from vacation.

I’m reading a book now called A Thousand Tomorrows by Karen Kingsbury. I’m about halfway finished, and I will post my thoughts about this story when I’m done.

Until next time,
Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com
www.blackchristianfiction.com

Since I’m attending the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) conference in September, and I’m meeting with an editor or two, I thought it would be a good idea to find a few recent titles they’d recently published. Since I’ll be on vacation next week, I thought I’d actually go to a bookstore and get the books I’m searching for so that I can read them while on vacation. I used to go to bookstores often, however, now that I’ve got a child, life has just gotten harder and more complicated. Just doing the simplest things takes time and planning.

Over the last few years, I’ve gotten used to purchasing most of my books off of Amazon. Since I want these titles by Saturday, and don’t want to pay for overnight postage, I thought I’d look for the titles at local bookstores. Here are the titles I’m planning to buy this week:

Tracey Bateman – Claire Knows Best and Leave It To Claire
Shelley Bates – Pocket Full of Pearls

Just to make sure I didn’t waste a trip, I’d planned on calling the bookstores to make sure they had some or all of those titles. I didn’t feel like hauling my baby to the bookstore after work only to discover they did not have the titles. Unfortunately, it was a long day at work and I didn’t have time to call the bookstores. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make time to get the titles before Saturday so that I can read them while on vacation. I’ll check my library also.

Until next time,
Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com
www.blackchristianfiction.com

My previous post was about the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference. I mentioned the book editor panel that I attended. I actually thought of a question that I would have liked to ask the editors, but I didn’t have the chance to do so. With the recent acquisition of Multnomah publishers by Random House, and Howard Publishing(now Howard books) by Simon and Schuster, I wonder what this means for the Christian book publishing market as a whole. Will a greater majority of the Christian publishing houses be under secular publishers eventually?

This is just food for thought. Feel free to post your comments.

Until next time,
Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com
www.blackchristianfiction.com

You can find posts from previous years at the following address:
http://cdnovelist.diaryland.com/

From this point forward, I will be using blogger.com for all of my blog entries.

Hi, All! The weather is changing and the leaves are turning into brilliant colors as they fall from the trees. Fall is such a wonderful time of the year! Whenever I think of autumn, I think of hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick, apples being harvested and bright orange pumpkins for sale at the grocery store.

During this change of season, I’m working on my author alterations for my book being released in February 2005! This is the last time I’ll be able to review the book before it is released, so I’m making sure everything flows as smoothly as possible!I’ve also been taking time out of my busy schedule to read some interesting Christian books.

I’m thinking of writing a Christian chick lit/mom lit story, so, I decided to read a few of the Christian chick lit and mom lit titles. The first title I read was the Yada Yada Prayer Group. This was a light enjoyable read, which teaches you a few things about faith, and trusting God when things hit an all-time low in marriage, and in life in general. A group of women meet at a Christian women’s conference and are placed into a prayer group together. They continue the prayer group after the conference, and they form strong friendships based on their faith in the Lord. I’d highly recommend this book to readers of Christian women’s fiction.

Two other titles I read are the Sisterchick books by Robin Jones Gunn: Sisterchicks on the Loose and Sisterchicks do the Hula. Both of the books take place in foreign(well Hawaii is not foreign, but it’s faraway!) settings. These books were fun, enjoyable, and show how women form bonding, long-lasting friendships! Kudos to Robin for developing such wonderful stories for our entertainment!The last two chick lit books I’ve read are by Kristen Billerbeck: What A Girl Wants and She’s Out of Control. Ashley is a thirty-something single girl, who discovers that finding the right guy is, oh, so hard! I don’t want to spoil the stories for those wishing to read them, but, let’s just say that Ms. Billerbeck has a definite talent for humor! These books are hilarious, plus, they show how we should always keep God in the center of our lives! She displays the heroine’s faith wonderfully, and I was so entertained when I read both of these books!

Well, that’s all I have to say until next time! Feel free to drop me a line if you read any of these books and let me know what you thought about them!