Feature Religion Update
The category is down, but it’s far from out, with publishers
pursuing new audiences and new sales venues
The Future of
Christian Fiction
By Ann Byle
Despite the much-discussed 15% drop in Christian fiction print unit sales from 2013 to 2014, as reported by Nielsen BookScan, publishers aren’t sounding the cat- egory’s death knell yet. At the
same time, they acknowledge the challenges that Christian fiction faces.
At Howard Books, a division of Simon &
Schuster, publisher Jonathan Merkh cites a
readership that has been branching out
beyond Christian fiction, and the difficulty
in launching debut authors, who in the
past may have bumped up sales numbers.
And while “we’re already seeing progress in
sales this year,” he says, last year’s drop has Howard doing some
close self-examination. “We have to be smarter about how we
publish books, and we must find new ways and new channels
for getting the word out.”
Steve Oates, v-p of marketing for Bethany House, part of
Baker Publishing Group, says that while “we have seen a decline
in sales,” it’s less than 10%. “There really isn’t a ‘sky is falling’
mentality from us,” he says. “Bethany has over 50% of its sales
in fiction; we are in it and we are committed.”
Abingdon Press, which had stopped
acquiring and publishing fiction for a short
time in 2013 and 2014, is cautiously step-
ping back in with 12–16 titles a year, com-
pared with the 25–36 novels it used to pub-
lish annually. “With the ongoing changes
in the marketplace, we are watching closely
and evaluating, as are most fiction publish-
ers,” says Ramona Richards, managing edi-
tor, Christian Living and Abingdon Fiction.
“Every publisher has genres that work bet-
ter than others; our core has always been
contemporary women’s fiction and sus-
pense. This renewed focus on our core
strengths will allow for a broader marketing
spread and brand identity.”
Daisy Hutton, v-p of fiction for HarperCollins Christian
Publishing (HCCP), says that fiction sales via its Thomas Nel-
son and Zondervan lines increased slightly in the first quarter
of 2015, compared with the same period in 2014. “We’ve seen
nice growth on the print side of the business,” she says. “This is
really encouraging based on the reality we live in.”
For Hutton, standing out in the marketplace presents one of
the category’s big hurdles. “There has been tremendous conver-
gence in the way our readers discover and read books,” she says.
“We’re no longer in a time when readers walk into a segmented
environment to find books. They are finding them on endless
bookshelves with endless content available to them.”
Translation: rather than browsing the Christian fiction sec-
tions of bricks-and-mortar shops, readers now buy hard copies
and e-books online from Amazon or similar retailers, shop at
big-box stores, borrow more often from libraries and friends,
make more purchases at secondhand stores and yard sales, and
wait for deep discounts at bargain tables and on websites.
“In my mind this is the challenge,” Hutton says. “Our books
are competing in the marketplace that all fiction readers have
access to. We aren’t publishing into a theater where readers only
look for the Christian fiction we’re offering, but to readers who
are looking at everything offered in all places.”
Oates, of Bethany House, also has a take on the phenomenon.
Jonathan Merkh
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NEW PLAYER
Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas
Founded: Raleigh, N.C., 2007
List: Up to eight books per year from each of seven fiction
imprints. Genres include contemporary and historical fiction and
romance, Southern fiction, and speculative and fantasy fiction.
Payment: 40%; books are released as e-books and POD.
Notable title: Once Beyond a Time, by Ann Tatlock, who heads
historical fiction imprint Heritage Beacon, is a 2015 Christy
Award finalist. “We want to bridge the gap [for] debut novelists
who have really good work but were spending $5,000 to
self-publish a book,” says founder and CEO Eddie Jones. Jones
says that LPC is filling “the debut author niche.” He adds: “Our
mission is to launch careers. If I can bring on a debut novelist,
sell a few thousand copies of his or her book, and they go on to
land a larger contract with a bigger house, we have fulfilled our
mission.”
