Fiction's Growing Pains

The awkward adolescence of the Christian novel

By Jana Reiss -- Publishers Weekly, 6/17/2002

Every parent watches it happen. Seemingly overnight, a child shoots up and takes on the appearance of an adult, causing parents to wonder what happened to their baby. The teenager looks like a grownup and sometimes even seems to think like a grownup, demonstrating startling, though fleeting, moments of maturity and clarity. All of this happens amid the Sturm und Drang of adolescence, as teens find their identity while appeasing their peers and struggling to keep hormones in check.

It's an appropriate metaphor for the current state of evangelical Christian fiction. Once relegated to a single shelf and dominated by the genre of the childlike prairie romance, CBA fiction has achieved unprecedented status as a profitable industry in its own right. It has, in effect, "arrived," with all of the packaging of its ABA counterpart. Yet many outside--and also within--the industry still criticize Christian fiction as immature, even shallow. Although there are flashes of depth and brilliance, is the industry as a whole ready to move on to the next level?

CBA insiders note there is much to celebrate. In 1985, Christian fiction had just 4.3% of adult book sales in Christian stores; now, that figure hovers between 12 and 15%. Its growth has been more explosive than linear--one of the first certifiable Christian blockbusters, Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness (Crossway), was published in 1986, but didn't begin to climb the CBA bestseller charts until 1988, when word of mouth (and a recommendation by popular singer Amy Grant) put the spiritual warfare novel on the front burner. By 1989, fiction had shot up to 8% of adult Christian book sales, but it stayed in that 8%-9% range for several more years--roughly until the Left Behind series (Tyndale) came on the scene in the late 1990s. That success story is well documented: with more than 34 million adult print products sold in the series (and 50 million products total, including children's and audio), Left Behind has made publishing history. In 2001, Desecration, the ninth novel in the series, topped PW's annual fiction bestseller list--this while the book only released the day before Halloween, allowing just two months of sales to be considered for that annual list. And the phenomenon is far from over--The Remnant, the 10th novel in the series, has a laydown date of July 2 and a first printing of 2.7 million copies.

The numbers tell a story of rapid growth. Dick Malone, v-p of product purchasing at Riverside Distributors (and before that a two-decade veteran at Spring Arbor), says that in 1989 Spring Arbor stocked only 573 Christian fiction titles. Last year, that figure had tripled to around 1,800. What's more, industry research suggests there's not yet enough supply to meet demand. A 2001 study by Publishers Weekly and the Parable Group found that 39% of "heavy"- and "medium"-volume Christian book buyers want more fiction--outstripping all other categories in demand. Fiction was also the category that heavy buyers purchase most often (19%), slightly ahead of inspirational books (18%) and Bible studies (17%).

Publishers report steady growth. "I feel that the Christian fiction market is strong, because our sales are going up every year," notes Susan Brower, director of marketing at Zondervan. Multnomah, the Oregon publisher that has had such phenomenal success with its nonfiction gift book The Prayer of Jabez, reports that sales of its fiction titles have increased significantly in just the last year. Its romantic suspense novelist, Dee Henderson, "is just on fire," says Sandy Muller, marketing manager for fiction and gifts. Multnomah currently has eight books on the CBA bestseller lists.

W Publishing Group also reports vigorous sales. "Everything that we do in fiction is selling better than when I came into the industry eight years ago," notes Ami McConnell, senior editor for fiction. "People are hungry for it."

The proliferation of Christian fiction has also led to a greater diversity in subgenres. What started out as a basic inspirational category encompassing romantic, historical and biblical fiction now also includes futuristic (apocalyptic) novels, suspense, mystery, women's fiction and the catch-all category of "contemporary," which includes some literary fiction. Science fiction and fantasy may be the next areas for growth; Rebekah Nesbitt, acquisitions director of fiction at Tyndale House, says that "sci-fi is an emerging genre, as is the legal thriller. There's just not yet the critical mass of authors or novels required to make it a full shelf in the store." There have been several offerings in Christian sci-fi, most recently Karen Hancock's Arena (Bethany, May), which may signal a trend if it can find an audience (see "In Profile," p. S23).

It's not just the quantity of CBA fiction that has improved; in some cases, it's also the quality. Many editors think there are some CBA novels whose literary quality is so remarkable that they can stand up to anything the ABA has to offer. There are some tangible signs that CBA fiction is being recognized outside of the evangelical Christian subculture. For example, Pursuit and Persuasion, the third book in Sally Wright's Ben Reese mystery series with Multnomah, was a finalist last year for an Edgar Allan Poe Award, one of the highest honors for a mystery novel. (The fourth book in the series, as yet untitled, will release in January 2003.) And CBA novelists such as Robin Lee Hatcher have won RITA Awards, the romance industry's sweetheart of a recognition. Other honors are probably still to come. Carol Johnson, v-p of editorial for adult fiction at Bethany House, thinks that "the character-driven novel is having a bigger play in the CBA. There's a whole list of CBA novels that would compare favorably with Oprah picks."

Along with the diversification of categories in Christian fiction comes the desire to have their substance recognized. In 1999, the industry launched a cooperative honor called the Christy Award, named after Catherine Marshall's groundbreaking 1979 novel Christy, which helped to jump-start the emergence of Christian fiction. The Christy Awards seek to identify the very best novels in eight categories, alerting booksellers to the novels' perceived excellence by marking them with a special seal and often placing them together in endcaps. The awards program itself is growing: in 2001, there were 88 nominees, while this year that number increased to 122. Winners will be announced at a special banquet at the CBA International convention in Anaheim on July 12.

All of this success has led to another major and (depending on who you talk to) very exciting trend: the entrance of various ABA publishers into the Christian fiction market. The most obvious kudos in this arena go to Viking, which now publishes Jan Karon's Mitford series, which has sold more than 10 million copies. Karon, who published the first three Mitford books with the CBA house Chariot Victor, has been a universal favorite in both the CBA and ABA markets. Viking also publishes the Zion Legacy series by Brock and Bodie Thoene, who are greatly beloved in the world of Christian historical fiction.

Another general trade house, Warner, launched its Christian line in 2000 and has published books by such CBA novelists as Jerry Jenkins, Karen Kingsbury and Deborah Bedford. Doubleday has dipped its toes into the market by copublishing (with WaterBrook Press) some fiction by Christy nominee T. Davis Bunn. The biggest enchilada is Bantam: in February, Bantam Dell inked a contract with Left Behind co-creator Tim LaHaye for a four-book deal. Although the coauthor had yet to be found, the publisher coughed up a cool $45 million to snag LaHaye.

Despite such cheery news, many believe that the strong sales and enhanced quality of some of the books have not yet refined the Christian fiction industry as a whole. "Yes, the quality has continued to improve," says Nick Harrison, senior editor at Harvest House. "But also, in the rush to publish Christian fiction, there has been quite a bit of mediocre fiction published." To illustrate, he says, "I've repeatedly mentioned to writers my frustration at finding so many novels populated by the same stereotypical people. In many cases, you could take the female protagonist out of one novel and plop her down in another one, and no one would know the difference."

Harrison also acknowledges that many CBA books are underedited by their authors. "It's pretty easy to tell when an author has sent me a manuscript that's only been through a couple of drafts," he says. "The really good manuscripts have been lovingly shaped through several, often many, drafts. E.B. White wisely said that the best writing is rewriting. That's certainly true of most fiction." W's McConnell agrees, saying she is certain that many CBA novels are not revised stringently enough. "But I also feel that some non-CBA books are underedited. It's a marketplace reality that there is not a whole lot of time to let things cook before release, so you do what you can," she says.

Despite the emergence of a subgenre of Christian literary fiction, many editors agree that these jewels are not necessarily going to be received as bestsellers--perhaps another indication of the market's lack of maturity. Critically received novelists such as Jamie Langston Turner (Bethany House) or James Calvin Schaap (Baker) are never going to rack up Left Behind-like sales. Several editors complain that because message-driven fiction tends to dominate the market, their best-quality works will never achieve CBA bestseller status, though they may nab a Christy.

Christian novels have also endured an awkward learning curve about "objectionable content"--which, in the CBA, seems to be defined as any four-letter word or any sex that is below the shoulders (see "What's Not Allowed" in this issue). But delimiting what is objectionable can be more amorphous. Multnomah author Linda Hall, for example, notes that when the manuscript for her novel Sadie's Song was sent out for peer review, comments came back about how some readers wished the main character would stay in the marriage--even though the novel was about a woman who suffered cruelly as the victim of domestic violence. "That ending would have been unfair to all of the women I spoke to when I was researching the book," Hall says. The publisher didn't tell her what to do, but requested that she consider an ending in which the husband would be transformed by a Christian experience. She conceded slightly "by having the minister visit him once in a while," though the husband remained unrepentant. She also compromised by taking out "the D word" (divorce), having Sadie refer to herself as a woman on her own. However, Hall refused to create an ending that she believed would not be true to life, and her editor at Multnomah "was definitely on [her] side." Hall's experience has a happy postscript; the book has been nominated for a Christy in the suspense category.

CBA publishers have many stories about the constraints of the genre. A Zondervan novel by Gilbert Morris, for example, was once sent back from stores because one character, a child in the post-Civil War South, called another character a "damn Yankee." Language is usually the reason for any controversy, say insiders. "The Bible can use more profanity than a Christian novel can," remarks Zondervan's Brower.

But most editors think the constraints serve an important purpose. "It jars the CBA reader to be enjoying a novel and then find it laced with profanity or explicit sex," says Harvest House's Harrison. "It actually works against the author's intention in a CBA novel because it breaks the reader's attention in the same way that an unbelievable turn of the plot will break the reader's suspension of belief." The key, then, is knowing the market, which becomes ever trickier as Christian novels become available in far more outlets than just CBA stores.

Editors from several CBA houses lament that often, when they discover a fine author, they might get to do two or three books with that person before the writer leaves for a larger Christian house or for the ABA, which offers more money, more prestige and fewer content restraints. Baker, for example, bemoans the loss of novelist Augusta Trobaugh, whose Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb and Praise Jerusalem! earned critical raves. Trobaugh (see "In Profile," p. S23) recently published her third novel, Sophie and the Rising Sun, with Dutton Adult, an imprint of Penguin Putnam that paid the author a six-figure advance. "That's our big sob story," says Jeanette Thomason, special projects editor at Revell and Baker. "We were disappointed to lose such a talented, dazzling author."

Other CBA publishers have similar tales. Vinita Hampton Wright, who has been featured on the cover of Christianity Today and profiled in PW and other places, published her first two novels, Grace at Bender Springs and Velma Still Cooks in Leeway, with the Nashville publisher Broadman & Holman. After much deliberation, Wright decided to pull out of doing the final novel of her three-book contract with that house. "By the time I was well into the third novel, it became very clear that this would not fit the CBA audience," she says. "I feel very strongly that as a writer, you have to follow where the writing takes you. Rather than get embroiled in a battle over content, I thought it better just to end the contract." Wright understands why CBA houses are so touchy about profanity and sex in Christian novels. "I don't really blame the publishers, because they're merely responding to bookstore owners who are responding to readers," she says. But as a writer, she thought she needed to tell the story as it evolved, rather than force it to conform to a publisher's nervousness about "objectionable content." Before she signs a contract with an ABA publisher, she wants to finish the novel, probably by the end of the year.

Wright and Trobaugh are not the only promising authors who have left the CBA. (Wright, it should be noted, leaves the door open for possibly returning.) Reed Arvin, who did his first novel, The Wind in the Wheat, with Thomas Nelson in 1994, says he was disappointed with the lack of editorial attention he received there. When he shopped his next novel, The Will, around to CBA publishers in 1998, he had several tempting offers, but all of the CBA publishers wanted him to make changes that he believed would diminish the book. His agent at the time urged him to refuse all of the offers and concentrate on finishing the novel according to his own creative vision. After completing the manuscript, he sold it to Scribner, which paid a low-six-figure advance ("about 20 times more than I thought I would get," he laughs). Arvin fretted that an ABA house like Scribner would want him to tone down the explicit Christian content of his legal thriller, but he was wrong. "When I talked to Jake [Morrissey, Arvin's editor at Scribner], he said, 'I think you should turn that up.' It was the last thing I expected him to say. This is a book that uses all of the power words--Jesus, cross, salvation."

Arvin has been surprised that as rights for The Will have been sold around the world, concerns about its Christian content have been raised by only one of the nations that made an offer (Norway). "The fact that you can go into a bookstore in the airport in Tel Aviv and buy a Hebrew-language copy of this profoundly Christian book is such a testament to me of the power of story and not propaganda," he says. Even Hollywood has latched on to it. "When I went to meet with the people at Paramount, the faith angle was all that they wanted to talk about! We hardly talked about the book or the movie--we talked about what it meant to be a Christian." And while the film, like many that are optioned, may never be made, that there has been such an enthusiastic reception for it at all in Hollywood is an "affirmation" to Arvin. "I feel that doors are more open than people think they are," he says.

The moves of several high-profile novelists from the CBA to the ABA does not necessarily portend an exodus; many fine writers are very happy to remain within the Christian publishing world. But several editors noted that one consistent problem in the CBA is that some authors are under contract to multiple houses simultaneously and try to do several books a year. "Some people that I've worked with over the years consider fiction writing like journalism--that it's a down-and-dirty, pump-it-out kind of exercise. And that is a hard viewpoint for an editor to take," says W's McConnell. "They're prolific, which feeds the hungry market, but it's not deeply satisfying." In contrast, she is delighted by the growth of two authors who have worked solely with W: Christy Award-winner Robert Whitlow (see "In Profile," p. S23) and novelist Penelope Stokes. "As writers, they are primarily concerned with growing in their craft. We cultivate a relationship. That's just not possible with authors who work with multiple houses. Their writing time is very fragmented, and each book doesn't get the kind of nurturing that I love to help happen," she explains. "Some authors are working with houses that I don't even know about. It's like trying to be married to someone who's on a different continent."

Tyndale House's Nesbitt agrees. "I think it's fair to say that if an author is writing three to four books a year, and one of those is for me and there need to be changes, that author may already be on to the next book and not willing to make the changes that are required," she says. "That's when it becomes a problem." Some authors, she concedes, "can do that many stories a year and the quality doesn't suffer," but most would have created "better, more solid" novels by confining themselves to one or two. Nesbitt points to successful Tyndale author Francine Rivers as an example of an author who limits herself to just one novel a year. "I know that readers would love to see more, but that's the pace she is most comfortable with," Nesbitt says. "I applaud that decision."

Zondervan's Brower notes that authors' house hopping can have a negative effect on marketing strategies. "We really prefer having an author who's not working with several publishers, because you lose control of their brand," she says. "They might go to another house where there's no editing at all." To counteract this, Zondervan permits its authors to experiment with different genres, all under the Zondervan label. "If Bill Myers wants to write a tender novella, or an allegory, or a suspense thriller, we will publish that because we're committed to his growth for the long haul," says Brower. "We also nurture our authors by doing multibook contracts. When we sign someone, we have a plan to invest in that author." Brandilyn Collins, for example, has a contract to do several books in both the suspense and women's fiction categories, allowing her to "jump genres" but stay with one publisher. Zondervan also lets authors know how much they are valued by taking all of its novelists on a fiction retreat about once every 18 months. "It's iron sharpening iron," Brower says. "We have panel discussions on writing and marketing trends. The authors can relax and network with each other."

In terms of author loyalty, money is also a relevant issue. Bethany House, for example, has one of the best track records in the CBA for retaining authors; staple novelist Janette Oke has been with the house exclusively since 1979, and Beverly Lewis has done all of her adult novels with Bethany. Carol Johnson says that while the publisher pays first-time authors a fairly typical CBA advance of about $10,000 to $15,000, it's willing to pay up to $150,000 for a novelist with an excellent track record if the house thinks that the author can recoup that amount in royalty earnings in the first year. This high-end advance is somewhat more than what other CBA houses pay for well-established novelists, which tends to range between $30,000 and $100,000. Johnson thinks that this strategy helps to keep outstanding authors from seeking greener pastures. "We just feel that all in all, staying with one house is usually a very healthy way to go for the author and the author's career," she says. "There's a kind of relationship built that goes beyond the nuts and bolts of publishing and creates a very strong trust."

Editors and marketing specialists alike suggest that it is difficult for new authors to break into the CBA, but that once they have, readers are extremely loyal. The market research done by PW and Parable bears that out: the top reasons that Christian consumers purchase a book are that it was written by an author they already enjoy, was suggested by a church leader or friend or that it was "written by a well-known author." Clearly, author recognition and word-of-mouth are very important in courting the Christian buyer.

However, a market that rewards established authors may not always hearken to emerging voices. "It's difficult for a new author, no matter how good, to get noticed," says Rod Morris, senior editor at Multnomah. Other editors believe that the market barriers may make publishers less likely to gamble on a first-timer. "This is the real ongoing problem for fiction, Christian or not," says Revell's Thomason. "How many writers who don't have a long, already tired, list of credentials are we willing to take a risk with? How many true talents without the attached platform are we willing to publish?"

Editors also complain that it is difficult to find new writers who are doing fiction that is truly special. "The biggest challenge is finding authors who have mastered the craft of fiction," says Harrison of Harvest House. "We see many manuscripts that are substandard, a few that are okay, but very few that really stand out." To find new talent, Harrison trolls writers' conferences. It was at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference that he discovered Roxanne Henke, whose novel After Anne was published in March.

While some CBA houses have stopped accepting unsolicited manuscripts, Tyndale has a special staff just to read them--more than 5,000 of them per year, approximately half of which are novels. Nesbitt believes this strategy may help unearth an unpublished writer, though she concedes that "it's very tough to get new authors and fresh voices. We want to pull our hair out sometimes because we just can't find that unique voice, that special story." To overcome the market resistance to new names, Tyndale introduces little-known romance authors through its HeartQuest anthologies, which pair an established writer with two newcomers. Customers, she believes, are more willing to take a chance when they're reading one novella as part of an anthology than if they were shelling out full price for a stand-alone by an unknown author.

The conservative nature of the market (i.e., its reluctance to embrace new talent) points to the need to educate retailers about the emergence of Christian fiction. Bethany House's Johnson identifies the education of retailers as her primary concern in growing the market. "I think that retailers on the ABA side of the fence have known for a long time that fiction was more than half of the books they sold. So they fully understand that this is their most frequent customer, and they understand some things about fiction, which makes it easy for them to market it successfully. But on the CBA side, it's only recently that fiction hasn't been considered a poor relation. That's a perspective that we are trying to change through the Christian Fiction Task Force and the Christy Awards." She also calls attention to the task force's Christian fiction retailer's manual that helps to make storeowners aware of authors, categories and brands. Last year, more than 15,000 copies of the manual were distributed to retailers, a number that the Christian Fiction Task Force hopes to expand this year.

It's not just CBA retailers that need to be educated about Christian fiction--it's consumers, too. Some insiders perceive that Christian fiction suffers from an image problem, and that the image many people have of it is probably outdated. "I think that some readers who have tried Christian fiction and been scared off would be surprised by the depth and breadth of what's available now," claims Johnson. But it's hard to convince new readers to take a chance on it. "I talk to a lot of friends and people in my sphere of influence who tell me that they don't read Christian fiction because it has such an agenda," says Tyndale's Nesbitt. "It breaks my heart, because while some Christian fiction is like that, much of it is not."

CBA publishers are going to great lengths to court and reassure consumers. Earlier this year, Kregel Publications inaugurated a "fiction guarantee," marking some of its strongest offerings with a promise that readers would get their money back if they were not satisfied. "If a consumer doesn't like it, it's free," says N. David Hill, executive director of sales and marketing for Kregel. He hopes this strategy will provide retailers and consumers with "a little extra encouragement" to try something new. Zondervan has a similar policy.

As Christian fiction continues to improve and to gain respect, industry experts hope that it will overcome the awkwardness of adolescence it is now experiencing. Novelist Reed Arvin is optimistic that it will. Arvin, who is intimately involved in the Christian music world (he played keyboards for Amy Grant and produced Rich Mullins's records), compares the current state of CBA fiction to the "shakedown" that occurred in the Christian music world over a decade ago. "Ten or 15 years ago, there was a lot of poor-quality Christian music being released," he explains. "The key producers made a major paradigm shift, saying, 'We are going to have half as many artists and spend twice as much on every one.' They raised their game, quality-wise, in a major way.

"It strikes me that the Christian book industry is going through the same throes now," Arvin continues. "I predict that 10 years from now, the world of Christian fiction will be as transformed as the world of Christian music has been. You will see a much higher level of writing."