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| For Everything There Is A Season: What's Next For Christian Publishing? |
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by Dan Gibson
 The jokes about Christian retail are almost too easy. Stacks of discs by Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, a movie section full of Veggietales films and other morally constructive fare, and bookshelves full of Bibles. Mix in the array of Christian gifts including a wide selection of Precious Moments figurines and sanctified versions of everything from greeting cards to breath mints.
A number of bands from the top of the pop charts originated on the Christian side of the music world and even the most sophisticated ears would have a hard time discerning most of the acts from their secular counterparts. Christian films like Fireproof have made appearances in the top ten films at the box office. The gift section still could use some work, I'll admit. At the recent International Christian Retail Show (or ICRS) in Denver this July, I saw drumsticks emblazened with Bible verses, and strangely, a Christian soccer ball. I will give a shoutout to the fine people who gave me the delightful stuffed lambs that my daughter has enjoyed since the show. Those people, at very least, are doing great work. Let's not talk about the t-shirts and bumper stickers. Nothing good can come out of that conversation.
The book industry, however, is a mix of the old and new. Sure, there are still titles based on terrible puns and books with concepts directly lifted from the secular world. At ICRS, I somehow missed it, but a friend told me he saw a book series that seemed to take a Thomas the Tank Engine clone off to the Holy Land, but I did see a cover for a young adult series that seemed to be trying to catch on to the coattails of Harry Potter several years too late. Probably not surprising in the age of Twilight (although somewhat mysterious in its connections to the traditional themes of Christianity, at least to your correspondent) was a Christian take on the bloodthirsty undead titled Bitten, from the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group (a division of Random House). Apparently, even a sharp toothed neck fiend can still find redemption in Christ. According to the book's editor in an interview with the Associated Press, "I don't think this," and by "this" she means, being a vampire, "is a despair too dark to pull out of."
However, the one specific type of novel every publisher seemed to have a version of has no secular counterpart that I know of: the Amish romance. Modern life can be crazy and the world can seem out of control morally, but the Amish are a steady force in these disconcerting times, apparently. Beverly Lewis kicked off the trend with her million (yes, million) selling romance, The Shunning in 1997. This year, if your publishing company didn't have an Amish romance, they probably had one with a different cloistered community...let's say, the Shakers or the Quakers, for example. These novels offer a glimpse into a simpler life, a more chaste take on romance and plus, the cover art is cheaper because Fabio won't do photo shoots involving buggies. Amish people have to fall in love too, I suppose, and when the physical stuff doesn't go past a kiss on the cheek, it's more believable than trying to convince readers that fictional teenagers are willing to stop way, way before they get to first base.
Even outside of the bonnet burners, Christian publishing has its far share of stars in recent years, including the Left Behind series, postmodern thinker and unofficial voice of young Christianity Donald Miller, and most recently, William P. Young and his self published best seller The Shack. Still, Christian book retailers themselves are struggling. Attendance on ICRS was at an all time low, the industry's trade group, the Christian Booksellers Association reports that their members saw net sales drop nearly 11 percent from the previous year and during 2008, at least 91 stores closed (although, to provide a bit of balance, 54 new ones opened). The elephant in the room is, like in many retail environments, Wal-Mart, which sells over a billion dollars in Christian media each year. While that's encouraging news to some extent, that someone is buying Christian stuff, and a lot of it, Wal-Mart picks up mostly the big hits (think the giant grin of the world's happiest pastor, Joel Osteen) with basically zero back catalog. Meanwhile, Christian publishers have been hit by a smaller marketplace for their titles and the shrinking economy, so publishers are putting out fewer books with open spots for titles by new authors pushed further and further into the future.
So where does the industry go from here? While keynote speaker Josh McDowell seemed to think the industry's hopes rested in a return to "absolute truth", even as someone who would consider himself a Christian, I'm not always sure what that means. There are still lots of books by celebrities who have some connection to the faith, from a number of NFL and college football coaches to former teen star Kirk Cameron and many, many books by pastors of giant churches. One industry insider I met said that the next generation of authors might save the business, but it would take some of the stars of the baby boomer era to go away first, and I think I might agree. Why put out a book by some unknown, when it's easier to crank out another predictable tome by someone like the aforementioned Josh McDowell (who seemed to turn out three books out of one concept that seems to be the same basic idea McDowell has been pushing since the 70's)?
Still, there were signs of life. One thing I noticed right away was that the design of these books has jumped leaps and bounds since I was first introduced to Christian books. I was thrilled to see great covers on books from every publisher, ones that would even cause the most hardened agnostic to do a doubletake. Thankfully, some of the content is getting cooler and more interesting as well. There were memoirs that held a bit of an edge without dipping into predictable messages of turning it all around with Jesus (I'm thinking particularly of Margot Starbuck's The Girl in the Orange Dress and Susan Isaacs' Angry Conversations With God) and funny and smart novels (see our First 50 profile of Rob Stennett's The End Is Now in this issue) that are of a quality that is competitive with the general market, not just among the best of the Christian section. Even more encouraging were the people I met. Clever, intelligent professionals who have great taste, fighting against the status quo of Christian publishing. If these agents, editors and publishers can keep their sanity while banging their head against the occasional (ok, frequent) narrow-minded attitudes that thwart their attempts at progress, more and more books that reflect a life of faith without insulting your intelligence will hit the shelves. I think that's something we can all hope for.
Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/consumerist/ / CC BY 2.0
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