Leading novelists discuss trends and retail opportunities

Inspirational fiction remains a bright spot in Christian publishing, with new writers and subgenres pushing the traditional boundaries of the category. Christian Retailing talked with five leading authors about the trends, their work and how Christian retailers can maximize their impact with faith-based novels. Taking part in the discussion were:

Read excerpts here and listen in on the whole chat at roundtable.christianretailing.com.

CHRISTIAN RETAILING: Why is Christian fiction on such an upward trend?

COLLEEN COBLE: I hear from a lot of readers who say that they are sick of the darkness that they see in ABA (general market) fiction, the language, the compromising positions/situations.

JERRY B. JENKINS: People are looking for something beyond themselves. This is a scary and troubling era. Even secular readers are saying that if they hear about a novel that is Christian-based or biblically based, it fits that hunger and they check it out. That is where we are seeing so many crossover readers.

LISA SAMSON: Whenever there is an economic downturn, people turn to something to forget about where they are and their troubles. Fiction takes people to a different place.

TERRI BLACKSTOCK: When I came to the Christian market about 15 years ago, we only had a couple of subgenres: historical, romance and contemporary books with preachers. Now have almost every genre that the ABA has ... readers have an alternative. They used to have to skip over the things they didn't like in their secular novels, and now they don't have to do that because they can go to a Christian book and really have their values affirmed, their beliefs challenged and their walk with Christ challenged.

LISA WINGATE: You're seeing a growth in people looking for what really reflects where most of middle America lives. Whether they regularly attend church or not, most people do have a faith and they do have a large belief, and I think they are looking for fiction that brings them closer to that, not pulls them away.

JENKINS: It used to be that the alternative to secular fiction with all of its graphic, sex or violence or language was Christian fiction that was so tidy and pristine that people didn't like it—even Christians. Nowadays, I think we've grown up. We know how to avoid the language and the graphic stuff, but it's still gritty with real people who sin and fail, and not everything is tied into a neat bow at the end. Christian fiction is maturing.

BLACKSTOCK: We are putting in our books questions that real people ask, like why God allows suffering, that kind of thing ... (not) pat answers, but we are trying to portray real people who suffer and who have real-life, honest questions. I think that's helpful to unbelievers who read our books because they realize then that we're not these cardboard people who think we have all the answers.

SAMSON: Whereas Christian fiction a few years ago was a very prescriptive kind of story, now it's a journey. Not all of our stories are filled with answers. Now characters are allowed not to find the pill that is going to solve everything. (Now they can say), "Well, I don't get all the answers, but I have a Savior. I have a God who is in me with my questions," and I think it's just very authentic, and people are responding to it.

WINGATE: There is a lot more room now for a story that falls somewhere in the middle. ... You are seeing mainstream publishers cross into CBA publishing and Christian publishers crossing over into the mainstream parts of the bookstore.

CHRISTIAN RETAILING: With that blurring, what are the defining elements of Christian fiction?

JENKINS: Whether you are evangelical or not, a Christian author has a hopeful worldview. While everything isn't happily-ever-after in the end, it should definitely point toward hope and I think that is what is so refreshing to people. They read a really tough story, and somebody is really suffering and in the end, while it may not all work out perfectly, there is hope and there is some redemption and there is forgiveness, and that's our worldview.

COBLE: My novel always has to include that hope, and it always has to reinforce my own Christian values. Even if the character isn't initially a Christian, what those values reinforce is that there is consequence for sin, and there is a God who cares.

BLACKSTOCK: Christian novels should have something of eternal value. Books that are clean and wholesome but don't have a Christian theme, I don't know why they would have a Christian label. Our novels should challenge (readers) to bear more fruit or be redemptive and point people to Christ or illustrate biblical principles. I want my message to be organic to the plot, but I am always intentionally evangelical in what I write.

JENKINS: It's important to me to imagine a reader who is uninitiated to our language and our culture and is skeptical, so I can't use phrases that are beautiful to us—"I am redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb." That is special to us, but it means nothing to the world.

BLACKSTOCK: Sometimes it can be even more powerful in sharing the gospel when you have a character who is rejecting the gospel. That's fun to do because then the unbeliever sees that and says,, 'That's me. I feel those things. I'm that person.' Then you can show the opposite of that. You just have to be creative in how you do it.

SAMSON: I have noticed that Christian fiction, as far as portraying unbelievers, is more complex. ... It used to be if you didn't know Jesus, you were a bad guy. I think that's a real grown-up thing that's happened to Christian fiction.

CHRISTIAN RETAILING: How can Christian stores better connect customers with Christian fiction?

COBLE: I am CEO of American Fiction Christian Writers, and we have launched a Web site, www.fictionfinder.com, that allows authors and publishers to post about their books, topics that they cover, issues that might help someone who comes into the bookstore. The best way to market is to understand the fiction, to be a reader.

JENKINS: A lot of people get into the business because they love reading, and then they realize this is the busiest job they have ever had and they don't have the time to read. But always, when a retailer has read a book, that's the absolute best thing that can happen. When somebody comes through and says, "I am looking for science fiction," if somebody says, "I just read this one and you'll love it," it's a sale and that's all there is to it.

COBLE: I would like booksellers to think of our books as ministry tools because when someone comes in (who is) going through a divorce, the staff can point them, of course, to a self-help book, but they might also say, "This novel is also about divorce, and it has helped some of our customers."

SAMSON: Our books are met with skepticism as far as really helping people. Wouldn't it just be lovely if somehow we could get our reader letters or snippets to retailers to say, 'These are helping people, and here are some of the things that people said'? We all have our stories. Someone was on the verge of suicide and read my books straight up and wrote me and said, "This book saved my life."

COBLE: If only bookstore owners and employees could catch a hold of the vision that emotion reaches a different place in a person and that's what our stories bring—we have truth embedded.

My last book was about drug abuse, and my book signings became, literally, counseling sessions because people were coming in to tell me that their children had drug-abuse problems, and their loved ones. You just have no idea how much potential is in these novels and how much healing power is in them and how the Holy Spirit is using them in people's lives.

WINGATE: The beauty of fiction that makes it different from reading self-help and nonfiction is your chance to be in the mind, heart, body and soul of another person. If you are dealing with someone who is further back on that path, whatever it is—going through a divorce, caring for an elderly relative who is dying or a child with drug abuse—sometimes reading that story is their chance to walk all the way through that path and see how God pulls out on the other end, to look ahead and think, "OK, somebody else did it."

CHRISTIAN RETAILING: What are you working on now?

BLACKSTOCK: I am working on an 'Intervention' series. It has to do with a mother whose daughter is dealing with drug abuse, and it came out of my own life with a daughter who is going through that, so it was very personal to me.

JENKINS: I have a book coming in July called The Last Operative (Tyndale House Publishers), and it's really something different for me, an international spy thriller. I've been writing sort of big-themed books lately, and this is not one—this is really some escapism, and I think the market is ready for it. People are saying, "Can I just have a book that I can enjoy reading at the beach?" There is some important truth in it, and there is definitely a Christian angle and everything, but it is just a fun escape.

SAMSON: Resurrection in May (Thomas Nelson), which will be coming out this summer, is about a woman who goes to Rwanda ... at the time of the genocide in the early '90s. ... She comes back and has basically died inside. The person who brings her back to life the most is a man from her past who was on death row, so it's kind of a twist there—the dead brings the dead to life, which is so Jesus, with the death on the cross. I became a pen pal with a man on death row in Ohio who helped me write this book.

COBLE: I started out writing historical romance, but my dream was always to write mysteries because that is what I loved to read, romantic suspense. My first book in the "Mercy Falls" series, The Lightkeeper's Daughter (Thomas Nelson), released in January: Addie was raised by a light keeper and his wife and discovers they were not her parents. She goes on a search to find her real father and discovers that her family isn't nearly as important as her heavenly Father. Book two will be out in October.

WINGATE: Never Say Never (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group) was inspired by the hurricane evacuations that we have seen in recent years in Texas. What better time to find out how much faith you've got than when your stuck in the woods in a car during a hurricane coming? This summer I will have Beyond Summer (Penguin), which is based on a neighborhood in Dallas, and it's about people suffering ... God mixing three very different women together who are struggling with different things and how He changes all of them and pulls them through.