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on about books x we delve into the latest news about the publishing industry with interesting insider interviews with publishing industry experts. we'll also give you updates on current nonfiction authors and books. the latest book reviews and we'll talk about the current nonfiction books featured on c-span spoke tv. and welcome to about books. in a few minutes, we'll chat with actor and author kirk cameron about his children's book tour and newest book calling for a spiritual comeback in america. but first, here's some of the latest news from the publishing world. publishers weekly reports that employment in american publishing jobs is down 40% from its peak back in the late nineties. in 2023, the number of full time publishing jobs was just under

55,000. that's down from 91,000 full time publishing jobs. back in 1997. today, about 17% of publishing jobs are located in new york city. that's down from about 20%. just eight years ago. publishers weekly noted that context is key, though, when talking about the decline in publishing jobs. quote, there have been significant shifts, includin new technology and canceled nation that make it difficult to compare today's publishi industry to the industry that existed three decades ago. that's from the publishers weekly report. in addition, they note the government data on full time publishing jobs doesn't account for self-publish to authors or those who work for self-publishing companies. and speaking of book publishers, the association of american publishers is out with its new report on book sales for the first half of 2024 through june. book sales, including trade and religious and higher education, course materials, were up about 6% compared to last year, with

$6.3 billion in revenues. when it comes to e-books, revenues were up about 3% over the first six months of the year to $507 million and audiobook sales were up about 20% coming in just behind e-books. at $503 million in revenue. and now a conversation with one author who is hoping to add to industry book sales in the second half of 2024. kirk cameron released born to be brave on october 8th and recently sat down with booktv. kirk cameron you've spent the past couple of years writing books for children, but your latest book, born to be brave, is aimed at adults. why the change in audience? oh, well, because i like adults to. i am one. i'm a parent. i'm a grandparent. and what i've found is that there are a lot of people who are living here in america that are feeling discouraged by things that they see happening in the world, recognizing that their children are going to have a rough go of things if, if

good, well intentioned parents and grandparents don't lean in, find some courage, and begin to. create the kind of world that they want for their children and grandchildren and so my book is called born to be brave. i think those who have a heart full of faith and a love for their country and a love for their children are the ones who are positioned to do the most good. and we need to have a sense of courage to come up against some of the forces and the obstacles, the challenges that have got a lot of people feeling really discouraged. so it's called brave how to be a part of america's spiritual comeback. and i want to focus on the second part of that title. what do you mean by the term america's spiritual comeback? what is that? yeah. so a couple of words that that we could put in place of that would be revival would be great awakening. we've had several of them in our country before, and many nations

have experienced revivals of true principles of first principles. some of my most inspiring heroes are those who came across the atlantic ocean on the mayflower. our forefathers and foremothers, the pilgrims. and they left for us their blueprint, their matrix for liberty, so that if we ever lost our way, we could find our way back to the secrets that made america such a great nation for the sake of continued generations, blessing and protection. and what many of us want to see is a return to those first principles of loving god with all of our heart. recognize that capitalism without compassion is detrimental, but that a constitu tional republic that is built on heavenly principles like loving god with all your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself. the application of the bible to

to the family, to the community, to your church life, and to your civil government is the recipe for human flourishing every where. and people need courage to to rediscover these principles and then to deploy them. local league. and then across the nation. so how does a parent or grandparent start what you say, start local? where do you want them to go? how do you go about doing this? what do you tell them in your book? yes. so in my book, i've i've wrestled with this idea that if we turn on the news and we don't like what we're seeing, we're looking at the the the macro problem. and what i've discovered over the last couple of decades. being a dad and raising six kids and a grandparent, being married for 35 years and seeing the world changes, that all real, lasting change begins with heart transformation. so we got to start local, like really local, like in my own

heart. and then that can move out as i've reformed myself to then begin to have a nice my home and i can begin to speak with a bold, courageous, faithful, loving, kind, gentle, encouraging words to my spouse and to my children. and then as families, we can come together as a community in our churches and in our neighborhoods and begin to heaven ize the place that we live. and that can continue like like growing concentric circles to move across the land from my house all the way up to the white house. and i think that is the strategy that we have to follow if we want to see lasting change. and that is the strategy that i lay out in my book, born to be brave. you use the term have a nice twice there. what does that mean? and is it a strictly chris sheehan meaning have a nice. well, i certainly mean it that

way because i do i am a christian and i, i started out as an atheist and had a massive worldview shift. and then the way that i see everything begins to to be colored that way with wanting to wanting god to be honored by the things that i do and wanting people to flourish around me, by treating them the way that i would like to be treated. so i think when people think of, you know, if i were to ask somebody, what's a problem you would like to solve? and some people may say the human trafficking problem. some people may say the corruption in politics. some people may say racism or or slavery that still exists in the world today. the economic problems, health problems. i think what they're really saying is that things are broken and we want them to be made whole again. we want things to be right. and i think that's what we think of when we think of heaven. and so maybe the words of jesus

god may or may make your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. we would like for earth to reflect a little bit more of heaven and i think that we can do that when we start locally in our heart, we begin to reform our our home life and we give our children a strong foundation upon which they can build for the next 50 years. and if we do that collectively, i think that we can begin to see a bright future ahead of us for folks who know you from your tv work. when did you become a christian? when did this massive worldview shift happen? yeah, when i was about 17 years old. so first, let me say there was a bunch of worldview shifts. i mean, i grew up as a little kid wanting to be a doctor. i loved math and science biology. i wanted to be like ben carson. i really wanted to be a surgeon. and when i was about nine years old, my mom took me to a talent agent. she signed me up, sent me on

auditions, and all of a sudden one thing leads to another, and i'm doing mcdonald's commercials. and then i'm mike seaver on growing pains. that lasted for quite a while through my college years, i ended up getting married to my on screen girlfriend and i. i, i lost my, my belief in atheism, if i could phrase it that way. and today i'm recovering from my atheism as i'm healing through learning how to know and love god with all of my heart. so those worldview shifts from my career to my philosophical religious worldview has, i think, filled me with so much gratitude. and i want to live the rest of my life in a way that is keeping evil in check and amplifying and magnifying the good. still married to your onscreen girlfriend, chelsea cameron. six children and a recent grandchild. what books are you playing to

read to that newborn grandchild? wow. we love reading books. we've got a whole library of books that are at our house. i remember as a little kid reading all those fun books like james and the giant peach and the mouse in the motorcycle and stuart little. and i loved all those in school, but so many of these books published by so many publishers like scholastic and others are are they? they've turned a corner and they're they're advancing an agenda that was unrecognizable to many of us parents and grandparents today. and so the books that i want to read my kids are books that are going to teach them what what i know as the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. i want my kids to be reading stories by books that i and others have written that teaches them that humility is the great virtue, not pride.

and i don't want my children and grandchildren to come home full of pride and be prideful husbands and prideful wives and mothers and fathers. i want them to be humble, not looking to be served, but to serve others. and i want to write books about that. i want to make television shows about that for kids. in fact, we've got a new one coming out, which is the modern day version of mister rogers. it's called adventures with iggy and mister kirk with a sesame street puppet. and we're teaching children all about important topics that if we don't teach our children their screens and tablets, will and and we can't be complainers. if if we outsource our parenting to big corporations or public schools or anything, we've got to stay in the in the leadership positions with our children. if we care about their little hearts and minds. how many children's books have you written? i've written three children's

books. one is called as you grow. teaching those virtues that i talked about. another one is pride comes berehe fall, which is a me extolling the virtues of humility rather than pride, fullness. and then thirdly, one is called the fox, the fear and the invention scare. and that's all about learning to love your enemies. and all three of these books with brave books, correct? yeah, that's right. what is brave books? well, brave books is a little publishing company with a big mission and a big heart. they write and distribute books to families with pro-gun, pro-american values. and they have 30 to 40 different authors working together with them and illustrators from all over to write books that hopefully will become a staple in parents toolboxes to help them teach their kids the values

that will lead to their blessing and their protection for generations. so i love all of their books and you can check them out at brave books wsj.com. they have a book of the month club and they also have a television show that we're working on coming out this fall. you mentioned scholastic. would scholastic excel any of the books of your books published by brave books? i sure hope so. i sure hope so. i mean, they're committed to d-i diversity, equity and inclusion. so i would hope that that some of the books that i'm writing and reading to our kids would be available through their book fairs and through their catalogs. scholastic preparing to have some 90,000 book fairs during this back to school season. and what do you think of that many book fairs and that many schools and scholastic being the juggernaut that it is in children's book publishing sales in the previous quarter? close to a quarter billion dollars.

wow. yeah. it's i mean, certainly they've been around. i. my understanding is over a hundred years. i remember them certainly as a kid. and they are the source for children's storybooks and text books and distributing them as well as publishing them. and one of the things that i've been excited about are those who are offering books outside of this giant channel that is going to be highlighting things that many parents and grandparents want to get back to. one of those book publishing companies is brave books and one of the school books, they're organizations, is called sky tree book fairs. and what they're doing is is trying to offer. wholesome american constitute to tional and biblical values in books that are exciting for

kids, that parents can trust as a substitute to for school tastic book fairs in in communities and schools that are not happy with scholastic. and i think that's great competition and is always a good thing. variety is always a good thing. and i'm really thankful for psychiatry and for brave. so how do you do that in as you grow one of your three books that that you publish with three books? what's the plot? what will parents and kids find if they pick it up? well, the plot is about a little acorn that is owg and eventually becomes something much bigger than it was as as a little acorn. it's a giant oak tree. and it's providing food and providing shelter and for all the animals who live in the forest. and so this is a book that teaches children about community. it teaches them about compassion. it teaches them to always look to the one who loves them best, which is the one who made them

god. it's teaching children about coming together to solve problems and to be thankful for the little things and be excited to be a part of something greater than yourself. all this is packed into this little book with beautiful illustrations and even discussion questions and games and challenges. at the back of the book that promotes family discussion time around the dinner table with your kids. so that's every brave book. and i've written three of them and they they're part of a really exciting library. which of the three sold the best so far? i think the first one y grow. i think that's the one that really made the news when i wanted to read this sweet little book in a public library like so many other groups are reading their books in public libraries. and believe it or not, i was denied by over 50 libraries. public libraries that had previously held drag queen stories for children, and they

denied me coming into the public library, even though the parents wanted me there on the grounds that my book didn't align with their values and that nobody would be interested and so they didn't make space for me to be able to read my children's book. and a public story hour. well, that hit the news that ended up causing them to reverse course. they sent out an invitation. and when i showed up, we had over 3000 parents and grandparents who came to downtown indianapolis public library, the largest event in the history of their of their existence. and this sent a message to me that, wow, there's a lot of parents who have a have a hunger for these kinds of books. and this is what you eventually call the see you at the library book tour. that's right. see you at the library was our take on a movement called see you at the pole. and if you remember, particularly in the nineties, there was a movement of parents and community members who would gather at their children's public school flagpole for the purpose of praying for children's protection and to thank them for the teachers and

ask for god's blessing on their education. this is a wonderful thing and we said, let's let's all meet at our public libraries and let's sing and let's pray and let's take it upon ourselves to read books of virtue and character to children that will promote and build the kinds of worlds that we want for them as we nourish their little hearts and minds. and we had over 35,000 people attend this one day event this last summer, and it was called see you at the library. over 350 public libraries participated simultaneously across 50 states and it was a beautiful thing. what's the process for holding a story hour or a book reading at a library? you've been through this. is it the same at all public libraries? well, what's really cool about it is that these are story hours led at public libraries organized by others, not by me or any organization, but it's

organized by local parents and grandparents. so anybody can do it. and you can read any book that you want. now, the the sort of blueprint or recipe, if you will, and support can be found at brave books. so that's the company that i've been publishing with, and they will send you a toolkit with books to read and american flags and promotional fliers that you can hang up at the library, your kid's school or whatever it is, and give you tips and advice on how to be a part of this. and then you can also see a map of all the other libraries so that if you don't want to host one of these story hours, you can just go to one in your local area, hosted by somebody else, or you could send books and and supplies to somebody who is hosting the story hour. so braid books dot com has all the info about see you at the library but when you were kept from reading at a library you said it happened. how many times did it happen to you? oh, wolf, 50 libraries denied us

and we wrote letters to three of them. and they were the ones that we actually we formally pushed back with. and all three of them reversed course. and we went to those libraries. when you formally push back, what was the just the justification for them saying no and and what did you push back with? well, i went on the news and i talked to some of my friends on mainstream news channels and other independent news channels and basically said, hey, this is this is a this is a violation of the constitution to have a viewpoint discrimination based on somebody's moral values or their spiritual values. i mean, we have the first amendment, you know, we have we have we have freedom of speech. we have freedom of religion. and so so when i pointed that out and put them on blast, they basically acquiesced and said, okay, yeah, you're right, we can't stop you. but they said that the reason that they didn't think i should come was because, quote, our values don't align with yours. so they're speaking on behalf of

their community, which clearly they were out ofouch with. because when i showed up in that commit there were 3000 people inside of the library, down the escalator and out the door, across the sidewalk into the parking lot. so many people that we were exceeding fire code capacities inside the library and we had to like transition people to other places. some of them said that they were looking for authors of color and i didn't fit the type. others said that they were an inclusive community and that they didn't want me there. i'm not sure how that's inclusive. it made me feel excluded. but when we went, we were surrounded by people who were saying, thank you for coming. we feel overlooked and silenced and marginalized. and the fact that you're bryant bringing attention to books that we love is really a good thing. and it's in our public library. and so we want access also. when this was happening in 2023, there is a column in lit hub, janet manley was was the author, the headline was the kirk

cameron drag queen story our cage match is officially on. and she writes in that piece, let's stop the fight for a minute. why are we doing this? how is it that the children's front list became the gettysburg of the culture war? how would you respond to that question? well, first of all, just the visual of me in a cage match with a drag queen is is a little disturbing, but listen, this is the world we live in where children are the targets. and anyone who is serious about molding the future or about creating the culture for the next generation knows that you've got to play the long game. you've got to make incremental changes over time. and the easiest people to get onto your side are those who are the most vulnerable, those who have minds that are mallia bull

and children are those people and so if, if you really want to secure a good, strong future moms and dads have to take seriously the sacred call of parenting to raise their children, to educate and nourish their minds. but if we outsource parenting and we allow others with maybe not good motives to indoctrinate children and to have those years and and hours of the day to teach them things they're going to capture the future and build the world for our children. so children is where it's at and children are important. children is the is the future of the nation. all the potential resides within them. and so drag queens are not you know, confined to bars and adult

venues. they're now in your preschool. they're now in your public libraries reading to three year olds and that's that's a that's a very concerning thing. i believe that god entrusted children to parents, not to public libraries, public schools, or even to churches. and that's because there's something in a parent that knows that these little hearts and minds are tender. and we need to give all that we've got to them to to lead them in the way that they should go and just following up on that, you say or even to churches, why did you add or even to churches? well, i think that there is an assumption with certain people, particularly people like me, people of faith, that, well, well, churches aren't going to do bad things to my kids. well, it it doesn't necessarily

mean that that i guess what i'm trying to say is that outsourcing, parental response abilities to anyone, whether it's civil government or church or daycare centers or whatever, i get that we need to be supported. we need help. they're single parents. there are all sorts of situations and i depend on my my community to help me raise my kids. but if i outsource the leadership role, even to something as virtuous as what a church ought to be, i think it's a grave mistake because god gave children to parents. so let's let's lean into our role, not ask other people to do our job for us. and then allow churches, civil governments, public libraries and other resources to play their supportive role as parents. do the heavy lifting this fall, are you going to be appearing at more public libraries? well, i'm not sure. i'm going to be appearing at public libraries because we we just culminated a year of that with see you at the library.

and now i'm really leaning into this new children's television show that's going to be coming out everywhere called adventures with iggy and mr. kirk. and they're going that that show is going to be animated. all of the children's books that brave books has written. so that children can learn them on their screens and the values that they teach. and the newest book is born to be brave how to be part of america's spiritual comeback. the author is kirk cameron. we appreciate your time on booktv. oh, man. thank you so much. great to talk with you today. god bless you. and you're watching about books, a program and podcast produced by c-span booktv. well, this week on booktv afterwards program journalist brigid schulte looks at how americans conceive of work and ways to improve quality of life on the job. here's a preview. so when you are in a culture that rewards busyness, that that cares more, if you look productive than if you really

are, or that values the long work hours, the input of what you're doing rather than the output, the output. what are you actually creating? what are you actually doing? what's the performance? what's the what's the impact in the world that you're having? if that doesn't matter, you know, then you have a whole lot of people running around trying to look important and busy and sort of perform work that isn't work at all. and and that's what i saw in a lot of us cultures. that's what i saw a lot of in japan and the reason i went to iceland is because they have a short work hours movement there. it's not a four day workweek, but they move. from 40 to 32 hours and they made that available to 85% of the population. so it wasn't just for elite, professional desk workers. you know, people who sit behind computers. i went there and i spoke to childcare workers, to nurses, to police officers. you know as well as to travel agents. and, you know, factory, you

know, people who worked in factories and things like that. and what was so interesting is for them to be able to get to 32 hours at the same rate of pay, they had to completely rethink what work was. and the first thing that they did is got really clear on that first circle. what is the meaningful work? what creates the most value? how do we prioritize that? and then they worked on that second circle. you know, all of the meetings and logistics and planning, like what are the processes that we can make to streamline it, to make sure that we're supporting that most important work? and then they completely got rid of the stupid work. there was no more performing work, you know, there was no more pretending to be busy and then getting kudos for it. because if you were no longer rewarded for just simply being a button, a chair or a presence or sending late night emails, and you were really focused on what was most important about work. the work got better. a reminder that afterwards airs every sunday evening at 10 p.m.

eastern time. well, thanks for joining us on about books, a program and podcast produced by c-span booktv. booktv will continue to bring you publishing news and author programs and a reminder that you can get this podcast on the c-span. now app and you can also watch online anytime all book tv programs at booktv dot org.