Presbyterian publishing ventures plunge in sales during 2001
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 30, 2001
TEMPE, Ariz. — Two publishing arms of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — the denomination’s Congregational Ministries Publishing and the independent Presbyterian Publishing Corp. — say their sales have plummeted.
After receiving reports of those downturns, the General Assembly Council voted on Sept. 29 to endorse the already ceased production of Covenant People, a Congregational Ministries Publishing curriculum that was amassing a huge unsold inventory and losing $150,000 a month.
The council was not asked to take any action on the report by Bill Longbrake of Seattle, chairman of the Presbyterian Publishing Corp., whose 2001 revenues have plunged by $2 million.
“During the first half of this year, net sales were nearly 30 percent below the level of a year earlier … the situation has been exacerbated by much higher returns” of unsold books, Longbrake said.
As a consequence, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation has lain off about a third of its employees and adopted a “back to the basics” strategy to publish material for markets that remain strong, Longbrake said. It will not publish new curricula for congregations, he added.
“We are optimistic that the worst is behind us,” he said. “We have negotiated a line of credit with a commercial bank and stretched our payments. We have worked to reduce discretionary expenses such as travel” — which, he added, was the reason the corporation’s president, Davis Perkins did not attend the council’s meeting in Tempe. The corporation is promoting lower prices for much of its inventory.
Longbrake predicted sales of about $8 million this year and a $2 million loss. By focusing on primary markets — church professionals, congregations, individuals and professors — he said the corporation is projecting sales of $10.2 million in 2002.
He did report one publishing success: The Gospel According to the Simpsons, which is based on the characters in the television comedy series. The first press run of 20,000 in September has sold out, he said.
Covenant People was introduced in 2000 with much fanfare as what Presbyterians wanted for Sunday school curriculum. Last year, 4,000 congregations bought parts of Covenant People; only 1,000 congregations have made purchases this year.
The executive committee of the General Assembly Council made an emergency decision by conference call in August to stop production — lest the Covenant People inventory swell from $1 million to $2.3 million.
The Rev. Lynn Shurley of Paducah, Ky., chairman of the council committee that oversees the work of Congregational Ministries, said the decision to produce Covenant People was made at a council meeting in 1999. It was then that the council approved what he called an “infamous bailout” of $500,000 to cover losses of previous publishing ventures.
Covenant People was intended to be a response to what researchers said congregations wanted: curriculum by Presbyterians for Presbyterians. Because of declining sales, it was concluded that Covenant People didn’t measure up to that aim.
Cliff Sherrod, a council member from Midland, Texas, expressed disappointment over the failure of Covenant People — but he also offered his assessment of what went wrong.
“Being from Texas, I’ve drilled a lot of dry holes, and I don’t like that we drilled them,” Sherrod said. “The point is that something hasn’t worked. I took it upon myself in my presbytery, Tres Rios, to try to find out what went wrong.”
Sherrod said one problem was the “general lethargy” among Presbyterians, the attitude that “ho hum, here’s something else from Louisville. But that’s not the only reason. Tres Rio appointed a special advocate to push this curriculum. I talked to her about this. If I had to nutshell it, she and I would say it was not user friendly. Could I suggest we’ve got to reach the ones who teach, and those who teach are not professional educators.”
Sherrod described Covenant People as being “voluminous and complicated” — ill-suited the typical Sunday school teacher: “most likely a female with a family of her own, probably a working mom, probably a soccer mom who took over the Sunday school class because there probably wasn’t anyone else to do it.”
Sherrod’s conclusion: After putting in a load of laundry at, say, 10 or 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday, she would review the Covenant People curriculum and wonder, in frustration, “‘What am I going to do?'”