Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Among the things our agents noted while at the International Christian Retail Show last month (and shared with me–so now I’m sharing with you) was some editors continue to struggle with what will sell in the Christian nonfiction market. I find that ironic since long ago Christian fiction was anathema; only polemical works and staid commentaries were ready sales to the churchgoing public.
About 50 years ago the Christian reading market, which was almost exclusively nonfiction, began to expand significantly. The pastor of our home church, Larry Christianson, was one of the first big sellers with his The Christian Family. For our wedding, Pastor Larry and his wife Nordis gave my husband and me an autographed copy of their then-latest best-seller: The Christian Marriage. It worked; my husband and I are still happily married 32 years later! 🙂
Both these books would fall into the Marriage and Family category, along with a crucial book we took on our honeymoon: The Act of Marriage. (That one worked, too.)
Because I mainly read books from the public library, I didn’t see a lot of Christian-themed material again until we attended the military chapel at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. The Baptist chaplain understood the necessity of extra-source material and kept a box of books beside the Bible study door, free for the sharing. I read them all over the 15 months we were stationed at the sub base.
I clearly remember the one thing they had in common: They were all published by Chosen Books. Titles included The Hiding Place, The Cross and the Switchblade, and Chuck Colson’s Born Again. Astronaut Jim Irwin also wrote an unusual book for them: More Than an Ark on Ararat: Spiritual Lessons Learned While Searching for Noah’s Ark.
All of them were testimonies of some sort. The writing quality was uneven, but I took away encouragement and spiritual insight from reading about the practical way God worked in others’ lives. Isn’t that what good Christian nonfiction should be?
What type of Christian nonfiction do you like? Are you a hunter–specifically tracking down the answer to a question? Or a browser–randomly picking up whatever looks interesting?
Have you seen changes in what you read, or what you want to read?
Did any one nonfiction book change your life?
Great post! While I definitely browse through fiction, I have yet to read a nonfiction book that wasn’t recommended by a friend. Guess I’m less adventurous in the nonfiction realm. 🙂
Rarely read non-fiction. Best non-fiction book I ever read: Dr. Emerson Eggrich’s Love and Respect. Good book, written with enough humor to make it especially palatable.
I will read a memoir now and then if I know the author. (Thin Places by Mary E. DeMuth is heartbreaking but beautiful.) And a very occasional biography/autobiography.
I will finish any fiction I start, but it takes a sensational book for me to finish non-fiction–I guess because so much of it is just opinion regardless of qualifications.
Strange, I suppose, but the things I want to learn (outside of research which I prefer through people contact) I can learn through a great story. And mostly what I want to learn are the workings of mankind–not what mankind says I should learn, think, do. The Holy Spirit does that for me.
My current favorite non-fiction book is Primal by Mark Batterson. He combines the primal essence of Christianity with a huge helping of creativity. I don’t when I’ve ever read anything that impacted me so much.
My favorite Christian non-fiction books have always been biographies. Heroes of the faith.
I’m fascinated by the factors going into this shift. Is the Internet killing non-fiction? As a non-fiction writer myself, I’d love to know your thoughts. Are more fiction or non-fiction titles sold each year?
Thanks for a great post, and I like the title. Nice touch.
Bill Giovannetti
How to Keep Your Inner Mess from Trashing Your Outer World (Monarch 2009)
I’ve been hunting numbers for you, Bill, with middling success. Publisher’s Weekly reports sales of adult non-fiction dropped 7% last year, while adult fiction sales went up 3%. Generally speaking, more non-fiction titles are published, but obviously not as many are sold.
For example, last year’s number one adult fiction seller was Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol at 5,543,643 copies sold. In 2009 the number one non-fiction was Going Rogue by Sarah Palin and my pal Lynn Vincent, but it “only” sold 2,674,684.
Other factors, in my opinion, could be the e-book market, which increased 176% last year. Non-fiction often includes photos and drawings which I haven’t found translate well onto our Kindle or my I-touch Kindle ap. I read almost exclusively fiction on the kindle, as does my husband, though he just finished the excellent Bonhoeffer bio and didn’t complain at all about the lack of pictures. 🙂
I look for nonfiction books on certain topics. Lately I’ve been reading about the history of Christianity, and books discussing the end times prophecies. I just finished Storm Warning, by Rev. Billy Graham, which I think is excellent.
Other than the Bible, I can’t think of any books that changed my life.
I have to read quite a few nonfiction books when I review, but they are always assigned–I don’t get to choose. Since the books I review are specific categories, sometimes it seems to me that there are endless books in those categories! And that some subjects are covered on every angle. This month I had a stack of parenting books and I’m up-to-here with those for awhile (hoping I don’t get any more at least for 6 mos. LOL.)
For some reason I can read a specific fiction genre endlessly, but I get tired of nonfiction in the same category after, oh, let’s say 10 books with exception to Bible study nonfiction.
Interesting post!
Yes, some non-fictions have definitely left their mark on me. Grace Awakening by Chuck Swindoll, Hiding Place, and Grace-Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel.
I have been reading alot of Christian parenting books lately, but I am also reviewing them for my blog. So many times I am handed Christian nonfiction, that I don’t really choose. Does devotional fall into the nonfiction category, or is that a differest category all it’s own?