What's New about "Faith Happenings" (a guest blog)

One of the key questions everyone is asking throughout publishing is, “How do consumers find out about books in order make a buying decision?” They used to wander the aisles at bookstores and make that impulse buy. With CBA stores down to about 1000 (from nearly 6500 when I first started as an agent), that’s not happening to any great degree. Some publishers are starting their own direct-to-consumer etail sites. But will a consumer go to 20 different sites to find products? Would you? Will Goodreads or Amazon service the less-than-avid reader to get them to find and buy books? Not likely. Can authors and their friends Tweet, Facebook and blog ENOUGH to find anyone but their own tribes to market to over and over again? Most authors know the answer to that one. All of this is part of the puzzle to create awareness and move books, but will it be enough over time to move the needle on our sales numbers as retail continues to decrease and the noise on the web continues to increase?

Greg Johnson, a friend and colleague of mine for nearly 20 years, has taken a bold move to help authors (traditional and indy), speakers, bloggers… get noticed. He’s started a new “one-stop resource for people of faith” called www.faithhappenings.com. It’s a first-of-its-kind local and national resource. It has area events (speakers, concerts, author events, fundraisers); serving opportunities; area church and ministry listings; camps, schools, family fun, marriage getaways. Basically, Greg says anything that is “soul-, marriage-, parenting- and church-enriching can be on our site.”

It just launched in June, so out of the 454 local websites active, only about 20 have a broad array of local content. But they ALL have national content like books, music, video, etc. How will it help authors, speakers and bloggers? Um, wow. Here’s his list:

• When people sign up (free to do so), they can select which categories of books (traditional and indie) to get weekly notices about. They have about 70 different book categories people can sign up for so they never miss a new release in a category they’re interested in. Fiction, nonfiction, kids, teens, leaders. The site does the same for for video and music in a dozen or more categories.
• You can also sign up for events, so if you’re a speaker and you want to be on the local calendar so people in the area know about your event, people have one website to come to in order to find out about you as a speaker, as well as your events. With the loss of announcements in local newspapers, this feature alone will be a huge benefit to a local area.
• And what about a book signing that no one but an author’s friends ever hear about? Greg’s philosophy is if someone is doing something Kingdom-related for free, they can have his space and membership list for free. That means, he says, ANY author event, like a book signing, reading, ACFW chapter meeting (or the like), or free workshop CAN ALL BE POSTED LOCALLY FOR FREE. It goes on the Area Calendar for that specific area and people can see it at any point (yes, even months out). He has developed this quick and easy template system for people to post their events. If it’s a paid event or an offering taken, there is a small fee ($50). Monthly or yearly low-cost membership-type groups are counted as free.
• If you are a speaker and want to post yourself locally as someone churches/ministries or women’s/men’s/student groups could call on to speak, then you list yourself and it goes in the “People You Need” section. They also have “regional speakers” who can be listed in several areas within driving distance. The goal: Get more speaking gigs closer to home. There is a small cost for this, but much less than what you would earn from one speaking gig.
• You can post your backlist books and independently published books in up to 3 different genres. For example: if you are a contemporary romance novelist and your book is on FaithHappenings, everyone who has requested this genre gets an email about it. All books are linked back to etail sites for easy purchase. And books stay on site in up to three genres… forever.
• FaithHappenings wants to be a clearinghouse for blogs in 15+ different categories. So if you’re a consistent blogger and want to get noticed, this will be a great way to find new readers who may never have heard about you. The site also does a “Featured Blogger” on the home page that runs for 3 days (small fee to be featured).
• On the Home Page, they are doing “Featured Resources of the Day.” So if your book is an ebook or print special, you can announce it so those who request to get this feature in their inbox will know when your book goes on special.

For those authors/speakers/bloggers who want to post in these areas above, yes, they will bundle services together at a substantial discount. The discounts range from 50% to 70%, with some variables.

The tagline for this site is “Your Complete, Tailored, Faith Resource,” but Greg also describes this new resource as a “Kingdom Christian CitySearch/Craigslist/Google.” The mission is to “To inform, enrich, inspire, and mobilize individual believers/churches and to enhance the unity of the local Christian Community to better serve the people in their local areas and the world.” Obviously, they need to expand into hundreds of other areas if they want to build a brand and make an impact. And they have a plan to do so.

My advice is to check out the site in your local area, check into how to become a member (they are even giving away 20 free music downloads and a free audiobook just for signing up), create a profile, look around and see if you like it. Greg promises the site is a “politics free zone” (he says, “Others have that mission”) and it fits a broad theological group.

While I’m certain the site is not perfect in every way—there are thousands of moving parts in it—this is a bold and needed endeavor as we see an author/publisher’s ability to find readers becoming increasingly difficult. And like any national website, it will get better as time goes on. Greg’s vision is to serve people locally so they will find our books and ministries.

How else can you benefit from this website? Briefly, here is the list Greg gave me:

1. Become an Affiliate Partner: Authors who put the FaithHappenings widget on the site to help increase membership numbers can earn points that will pay cash or double their value in going against paid items on his site. If you like the site and believe in the mission, this would be worth checking into. More info is listed in the black bar across the bottom of the Home Page. If you have questions, he says to email herringshaw@faithhappenings.com.
2. Work part-time with FaithHappenings: If you or someone you know is in need of some income, he is hiring commissioned customer service and sales people called “Community Associates” to build membership and present the site to the 35 or so different types of vendors who pay to be on their local site. You’d go to the “Work for us” link at the bottom of the Home Page to see if you’d qualify. Email hofer@faithhappenings.com if you have any questions.
3. Create Content to PR Your book: They are looking for consistent bloggers and devotional writers in several areas: women, men, pastors, students. They aren’t paying yet for this, but they will trade some of the other above services for content (that you keep ownership of). Again, email Casey if you would like a list of what they are still looking for. They are open to using older content you might have in your archives.

If you have other specific questions, you can email Greg at greg.johnson@faithhappenings.com.