Finding redemptive stories in the headlines can be risky—and rewarding

The story grabbed national headlines last September: A couple from suburban Detroit learned the last of their frozen embryos had been mistakenly transferred into another woman’s womb.

Last month—in less time than a typical pregnancy—Howard Books released Misconception, a chronicle of Paul and Shannon Morell’s fertility clinic experience.

That week the couple was due to appear on the Today show and Larry King Live, with a Dateline episode and other national TV spots to follow. The spotlight on the couple—whose Christian faith bolstered them through a personal crisis—may help boost sales for one of the latest “newsmaker” books, a label for titles arising from prominent events.

“It was a newsworthy story that had a very redemptive ending and brought to light an important topic,” Howard Editor in Chief Rebekah Nesbitt said of the decision to publish. “The Morell family had so much to be thankful for, starting with God and including the surrogate family, that we felt it was something we could explore in depth, and readers would be encouraged by it.”

Christian retailers are waiting to see whether Misconception will mirror the results of Mistaken Identity—another Howard release nearing 500,000 copies sold two years after publication. Curiously, the families involved in the tragic misidentification of two accident victims also live in Michigan.

Publishers and retailers say that this “ripped from the headlines” genre is high-risk, high-reward. Such factors as fickle public tastes, the possibility of media overexposure and a failure to create reader buzz mean there is no such thing as a can’t-miss title.

With Misconception, the participation of prolific writer Angela Hunt—who also collaborated with Gayle Haggard on Why I Stayed (Tyndale House Publishers, January)—gave Howard a level of comfort.

Still, to make a spring release, the book had to be written in two months. Despite this intense timetable, no one knows whether the public’s interest in the Morells will last past their son’s first birthday in September.

Mistaken Identity, meanwhile, seems to have developed legs because people give it to friends who have lost loved ones or buy it because they are touched by the story’s redemptive quality, Nesbitt said.

“It can be hard to tell,” the editor said. “Generally these newsmaker books have a shorter shelf life. It ties in to what’s happening that day in the news or that year on television. They are successful largely based on people’s curiosity about what they’ve seen in the news.”

Redemptive messages

“If you miss the news cycle you’re shot down for sure,” said Joel Miller, vice president of editorial and acquisitions at Thomas Nelson. “Printing to demand is always uncertain. It’s a gamble every time. The risks are huge; it’s one reason we don’t do a lot of them anymore.”

Still, the company hasn’t entirely avoided high-profile incidents. A Rush to Injustice (2007) reviewed the Duke University lacrosse team rape case, while Aruba (2006) delved into the story of missing Alabama woman Natalee Holloway.

Despite the non-stop headlines that followed Holloway’s disappearance, Miller called much of the coverage “surface.”Not only did the book include unique details, but the publisher also hopes it will eventually help lead to the teen’s discovery.

“We felt like we were able to offer something more to people interested in following the story,” said Nelson’s vice president. “The other thing was with any project we do, there’s some redemptive aspect. … Christians can feel that evil is real and needs to be confronted. Sometimes stepping into that space is a very worthwhile thing to do.”

Newsmaker titles don’t necessarily emerge from a single event, as demonstrated by two other Nelson releases—Lynne Spears’ (mother of singer Britney Spears) memoir, Through the Storm (2008), and The Faith of Barack Obama. Released the summer before the 2008 election, the latter explored the president’s religious background.

Other titles in the genre cross lines between memoir and headline news. After their kidnapping and her husband’s murder by terrorists in the Philippines in 2001, missionary Gracia Burnham wrote In the Presence of My Enemies (Tyndale, 2003). The book reached the New York Times best-seller list, won a Gold Medallion Book Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association and released in paperback this past January.

Nancy Clausen, Tyndale’s director of marketing and product development for books, attributed the book’s long-lasting nature to the story’s extraordinary quality and what has happened in Burnham’s life since the tragedy.

The new edition reviews Burnham’s subsequent role in bringing the terrorists to justice. Burnham also ministers to people through frequent speaking engagements and operating a foundation that supports ongoing missionary efforts, Clausen said.

Among Tyndale’s other newsmaker titles are Let’s Roll!, Lisa Beamer’s 2002 story of her late husband’s 9/11 heroics; Gayle Haggard’s memoir, tied to the headlines through her husband’s fall from grace in 2006; and Gone in a Heartbeat(Focus on the Family/Tyndale, 2009), David and Marie Works’ story of their daughters’ slaying at New Life Church in Colorado Springs in 2007.

Such books’ shorter lifespan creates certain pressures, Clausen said. Though it would be nice to have a year to get a book on the shelf, if the target audience’s attention won’t hold up that long, the publisher has to move faster, she said.

The Chicago-area company evaluates newsmaker books’ potential the same way it does any other title, Clausen added. “We will only publish a book that has substance and the ability to meet a spiritual need, no matter what publicity the story behind it has received,” she said. “The ability for it to gain the attention of the public is the only difference.

“Though we know a lot of attention can lead to book sales, we’ve also learned that just because an author or book can get a lot of media, it doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of sales.”

A double-edged sword

The literary agent who represented Beamer echoed Clausen’s statement. In a recent blog, Chip MacGregor recalled how Let’s Roll! hit No. 1 on the New York Times list after a plethora of 9/11-related media coverage.

Todd Beamer’s widow appeared on Larry King’s CNN show more than a dozen times in the following year. So, her story resonated with a public eager to learn more about what enabled her to be so poised in the face of tragedy, MacGregor said.

On the other hand, he helped Nancy Mankins tell her story after her missionary husband was taken captive and killed by Columbian terrorists. Despite a well-told tale that received tremendous media attention, Hostage (Nelson, 2001) languished in stores.

“Even a huge story with lots of media attention behind it can fail to capture an audience,” MacGregor said. “You can bet a personal story without that sort of attention has almost no chance.”

Such experiences line up with Wes Yoder’s theory that nobody knows the secret behind a best-seller. While authors appearing on the Today show will stimulate awareness, that doesn’t guarantee word-of-mouth advertising, said the president of Nashville’s Ambassador Agency.

“It’s a silly thing to say, but it really comes down to doing promotional things that create chatter among readers,” said the literary agent, who has worked on such projects as Mistaken Identity, Prisoners of Hope (WaterBrook Press, 2003) and Rachel’s Tears (Nelson, 10th anniversary edition, 2009).

“If that person tells her friends about the book, all of a sudden you have the chatter factor. What we always watch for is we have this wave of publicity that we’ve done, (but) does anybody care? Is anybody picking up the book and liking what’s inside? If they do, maybe we have a best-seller. If they don’t, it’s over very quickly.”

Ironically, though today’s 24-7 news cycle may be seen as primary fuel for newsmaker books, Yoder thinks it detracts from them. He said a glut of media interviews can kill the market and turn a potential book into a magazine story.

Nor does he think the cable/Internet/Twitter world is the real reason newsmaker books have come to the forefront in the past decade.

“I think there’s been a pattern of God taking people who are not looking for a platform, who are minding their own business,” said Yoder, who represented septuplet parents Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey (Seven From Heaven, Thomas Nelson, 1998).

“All they care about is living a faithful life for the Lord, and He taps them and says, ‘It’s your turn to speak,’ ” he added.

Retail promotion

Because Don and Susie Van Ryn live in Western Michigan, the East Beltline location of Kregel Parable Christian Stores in Grand Rapids hosted one of the few 2008 bookstore appearances by the Mistaken Identity co-authors. The store placed promotional flyers on college campuses and in area churches, coupled with a special mailing and e-mailing.

In addition, local media coverage helped attract more than 200 people to the two-hour signing. The store sold more than 100 books that day and promoted additional sales through a continuous video loop on store monitors.

The title—which is still in stock—has sold approximately 1,000 copies. That puts it second in newsmakers only to Let’s Roll!, said Jim Kregel, the bookstore group’s president.

“It probably depends on the book,” Kregel said of the sales window. “Given the amount of national advertising and local coverage on (Mistaken Identity), it had a long life locally.”Despite that success, many in this genre have an unknown quality. Kregel pointed to I Just Want You to Know by Kate Gosselin, which recently followed the best-sellers Multiple Bles8ings (2008) and Eight Little Faces, a spring 2009 picture book.

Although Zondervan ran a 400,000-copy first printing of the April release, Kregel said he was not sure how customers would react to the TLC star’s latest effort after her messy divorce last year.

He was not alone. Family Christian Stores surveyed shoppers by e-mail to see what they felt about the title and whether it should be promoted.

Just as personal peccadillos can affect sales, so does the Christian content, said Kirk Blank, president of the Munce Group. He said the success of these titles is directly linked to that factor.

“If the author throws in a ‘God’ reference now and then, it doesn’t do well,” Blank said. “We need to have a strong Christian message. Most stores want to know that if a book is going to get a lot of national publicity, they’re going to (get) great promotion and great incentives to be competitively priced.”

Identifying their Christian ties as the reason such books as Let’s Roll, Mistaken Identity and Son of Hamas (Tyndale, March) have done so well, Munce’s COO said that is one reason so many affiliates filed advance orders for Gosselin’s latest book.

Though her divorce demonstrates the risky nature on sales of a public figure’s setbacks, Blank was surprised by Gosselin’s generous use of scripture and emphasis on the gospel message in the new book.

However, I Just Want You to Know remains a question mark for Chuck Broderick, owner of Living Word Christian Store in Sarasota, Fla. One reason: Few newsmaker books have sold well there. Some exceptions are Unlikely Angel (Zondervan, 2005), about an Atlanta woman who persuaded an escaped convict to give himself up; Mistaken Identity; and Going Rogue (Zondervan/HarperCollins, 2009), the memoir of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

“We put it on an endcap and try to present it as something in the news,” Broderick said. “Other than that, there’s not much else you can do. How much we bring in and promote these depends on the reps dealing with us and how enthusiastic they are about a book of that nature.”

Mardel Christian & Education decided not to stock the latest Gosselin book at its 34 outlets, citing anticipated small demand, though the chain will special-order it on request. Aside from that decision, Senior Book Buyer Kevin McDonell said the newsmaker books Mardel has stocked haven’t performed that well.

“It seems like these type of titles perform better in the ABA (market) than in the Christian marketplace,” said McDonell, who calls a Christian message a key for this industry. “One challenge is getting the message out to potential customers of what the book is about and creating interest in the message.”

Parable Christian Stores reported success with certain titles, though—which has prompted it to offer downloadable endcaps for current-events titles for its 51 franchises and 87 affiliates. That option proved especially helpful with Mistaken Identity, according to Melanie Strouss, marketing and merchandising specialist.

The marketing group used the same approach with Going Rogue and Murder by Family (Howard, 2008). Kent Whitaker’s saga of the murder of two family members by his son has sold more than 100,000 copies.

“It depends on what our stores are already promoting that month and if the new title is something that would benefit our stores,” Strouss said. “If it’s getting huge media attention in mainstream outlets, then we’ll do something like provide a downloadable endcap. It really depends on the timing and the media.”

While there are newsmaker books that prove to have a long shelf life, most retailers agree with publishers that the window of opportunity is short-lived. Blank placed it at four to six weeks, while Strouss said it depends on the individual store.

“We generally tell them to leave it up for a month, but that’s because we recommend our stores change out their merchandise every three to four weeks in general,” Strouss said. “So that timing has nothing to do with the book; it has to do with our in-store merchandising plan.”

No matter how long retailers promote a book, Blank said they could do better with more cooperation.

“Typically these types of authors have publicists who don’t see the vision for working with the Christian market,” said Munce’s COO. “The Munce Group stores do a fantastic job with in-store appearances when given the opportunity.”

Regardless of how newsmaker books perform at the checkout counter, Nesbitt said publishers find them exciting. They offer a chance to move beyond the snippets of information that appear in news accounts, she explained.

“There’s so much more to the story,” the Howard editor said. “It gives not only the author, but the readers a chance to see what God has done in these people’s lives. The exciting part about publishing these books is that you get to tell the redemption story. We never grow tired of hearing it or telling it.”

If you miss the news cycle, you’re shot down for sure.”

—Joel Miller, vice president of editorial and acquisitions, Thomas Nelson

The exciting part about publishing these books is that you get to tell the redemption story.”

—Rebekah Nesbitt, editor in chief, Howard Books