If you want more bad news, then don’t read this post. But if you are tired of reading about bailouts, bankruptcies, and poor earnings, keep reading.

I’m no Pollyanna. I have blogged previously about embracing the most brutal facts of your current reality. I know people are suffering, and I hate that.

The long, seemingly endless election is finally over. Barack Obama is our new President. His victory was clear and decisive.

I have personally never witnessed a more bitter election. My own household was sharply divided.

Last week we published Through the Storm by Lynne Spears, mother of Britney and Jamie Lynn. The book appeared in the Amazon top 100 bestsellers for most of last week.

As part of the launch, Lynne appeared on The Today Show, Entertainment Tonight, The Rachael Ray Show, ShowBiz Tonight, and Inside Edition.

I watched MTVs VMA awards last night. Some of my daughters’ friends are in the band Paramore, and they were nominated for an award. And—to be honest—I wanted to see how Britney Spears would do, since we are publishing her mom’s book next week.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen MTV, but I was flabbergasted. I could not believe the sensuality and decadence I witnessed. Gail and I finally had to turn it off. We just couldn’t take it any more.

It takes years to build a brand. Unfortunately, there aren’t many shortcuts. You build a brand—like a reputation—one impression at a time. Every encounter with a customer results in either a “deposit†or a “withdrawal†in your “brand account.â€

Twenty years ago, if a customer had a bad experience with your company, it didn’t matter quite as much. Sure they could tell their friends, and if enough people had bad experiences, they could tell their friends. Eventually, it would catch up with you. But it didn’t happen overnight.

A couple of weeks ago, I made an offer to bloggers. I told them that we would send them a free copy of The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield in exchange for their agreement to write a 200-word review of the book.

I did not require that the reviews be positive. My thinking is that any publicity would helpful, even if it is negative. Interestingly, nearly all of the reviews have been positive.

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) just announced that our Word of Promise audio bible won the “Book of the Year†award for 2008. Wayne Hastings, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher for our Bible & Reference Group, accepted the award at the Christian Book Awards, held in Orlando, Florida, at the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS).

The amazing thing is that it is the first time in the 30-year history of the award that it went to a non-book. Think about it. First, it’s an audio Bible, rather than a traditional print book. Second, it’s a Bible rather than a book. This is fascinating. What does it mean for the future of publishing?

Usually, Publishers Weekly (or “PW,†as industry insiders call it) gets it right. Through the years, they have been very good to Thomas Nelson and to me. But today, I think they missed the boat. In “The PW Morning Report,†they said:

When Apple introduced the original iPhone last summer, it was a complete WOW experience. People expected a new phone, but their expectations were shaped entirely by their previous experiences with cell phones. As a result, Apple exceeded the market’s expectations. The company reinvented the cell phone and WOWed the market.

Among other things, Apple redefined voice mail and Web browsing on a mobile device. The company married a phone to an iPod and threw in an amazing touch-screen interface to boot. The device has proven so popular that Apple has sold five million phones in the last year.

Today, Christian Retailing ran a story about Thomas Nelson pulling out of the International Christian Retail Show (i.e., “ICRS,†the show formerly known as “CBAâ€). The article was entitled, “Thomas Nelson: ICRS Pull Out.†Unfortunately, it is not available online, so I can't link to it.

For the most part, CR got the story right. However, there are two items I’d like to correct. Both of them are near the end of the article. The first item is a simple omission.   A few weeks ago, in response to our decision not to attend ICRS, CBA issued a press release. The last paragraph said,

I hesitated about blogging on this. But it’s kind of the “elephant†in the room. I think I owe it to you, my readers, to blog about the good things as well as the difficult.

As you may have read in Publishers Weekly or the Tennessean, yesterday we laid off slightly less than 10% of our workforce. This was not an easy decision. It fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say this was one of the most difficult decisions of my tenure Thomas Nelson.

Today, we announced that we will no longer be participating in the two major trade shows in our industry: Book Expo America (BEA) or the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS). As I said in our press release, we have been discussing this move for some time. In fact, it’s a conversation we have had every year since I have been at Nelson (ten years).

But the current economic downturn is forcing us to re-evaluate every marketing dollar we spend. This is not the reason for our shift in strategy, but it is the catalyst. The reality is that these trade shows provide very little return to us on a hugely significant investment.

Last weekend, I attended a Christmas party with several of my friends. After getting a cup of hot apple cider, our polite conversation quickly turned to our mutual concern for the economy.

It seems that everywhere you look, the news is bad. The media drone on and on about the sub-prime mortgage crisis and high gas prices. While the outlook may not be apocalyptic, it is certainly pessimistic.

Yesterday, we sent out a press release announcing “Open House,†an event we plan to host in Nashville for our top Christian retail accounts in the Spring of 2008. We will invite two employees from each selected store and pay their expenses to attend the weekend conference in Nashville. The Open House initiative will take the place of our attendance at the CBA Advance convention.

Publishers Weekly ran an article in PW Daily about this entitled, “Nelson Out of CBA Winter Show.†Of course, the emphasis was on the fact that we have decided not to participate in next year’s CBA Advance trade show. Open House is our alternative. I thought the article was accurate and balanced. However, as I suspected, it has created a bit of a stir.

Recently, I wrote a post entitled Why the Bestsellers Lists Are Inaccurate. I followed this up a few days later with another post on the same topic entitled Toward a Better Bestsellers List.

Andy Butcher, the editor of Christian Retailing magazine, read the posts. He then sent me an email with several questions. I agreed to answer them, provided I could do so on my blog. I also agreed to wait until his article was published before I published my answers to his questions.

WestBow Press received some great coverage in the March 28 issue of Publishers Weekly. Here are a couple of excerpts worth noting: