Christians, Spec-Fic, and the Amish Issue

A good friend of mine sent me this link the other day, about why there isn't more Christian Speculative Fiction on the market, and why the Amish seem to be taking over the world.

Well, Christian bookstores, at least.

I thought it would be fun to blog about.

So let's take a look.

1.) Christian Bookstores don't carry much spec-fic/sci-fi/fantasy.

Sure, we know that the bookstores skew towards a female, and often older, demographic (hence the Precious Moments population). We know that spec-fic readers tend to be male. The two don't meet well. But even if you could get the spec-fic reading men into the bookstores, past the Testamints, and into the bookshelves, you still have a person standing in your way.

The person who buys the store's stock.

We're in a recession. We have been for a while. Though there are sure-bet spec-fic authors like Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, stores are going to be less likely to pick up books by lesser known authors in a genre that doesn't sell much.

And it's not just Christian bookstores. Mainstreams booksellers such as Barnes & Noble and Wal-Mart are going to buy what they think will sell well in their stores.

2.) "Everyone" is asking for more Spec-fic, though.

Keep in mind that, yes, spec-fic readers are very vocal, but one more thing - they know how to use their computers (this is not necessarily true of Amish Fiction readers. Just sayin'). Mike Duran's inside source (and if my hunch regarding the identity of that source is right, is a solid person to listen to) made the point that if Spec-fic really truly sold like gangbusters, publishers and book store buyers would sit up and pay attention. Really. But they're not. So my guess is that "everyone" isn't as many people as you'd think.

3.) Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker are the big fish in the spec-fic world.

True. BUT there are tons of other writers out there. Bill Myers is one of them; he'll also be keynoting this summer at the Oregon Christian Writers Conference in Canby. Jill Williamson's By Darkness Hid was not only Marcher Lord Press's biggest seller, but won the 2010 Christy Award in their Visionary category. Randy Ingermanson has several books out, Eric Wilson did a Vampire trilogy with Thomas Nelson Publishers, Stephen Lawhead released several fantasy books. The books are out there. You might have to order them, but they are in existence.

That said...

I have to be honest here. My husband has read a lot of spec-fic of the Michael Crighton, James Rollins, Matthew Reilly, Clive Cussler type. (By the way, how much should Clive Cussler be on Dancing With the Stars? Tons, that's how much. He can drive to the lot in his pink car. Sorry. Tangent.) He's also read some of the Christian releases.

And honestly? He usually likes the general market ones better.

There have been some exceptions, but he prefers the plotting in the general market releases. And rather than ignore the elephant in the room, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and accept that I may receive angry letters - there is some really, really good Christian Fiction out there, of many genres. But some of it is not so great. Just because a book is written from a Christian world-view doesn't mean that it's a worthy piece of art or entertainment. I'm sorry. it doesn't.

So. There you have it. I'm not pointing fingers or naming names, I'm just putting it out there.

4.) Historical Romance and Amish are what's selling.

The economy is bad. CBA readers, by and large, are looking for love stories, and they want them in long skirts. Gloves optional. Why Amish? Because it's safe. Because it's cozy. Because their world is simplified. Because our world isn't. Our world is scary and war-ridden and filled with gray areas that are difficult to wade through.

Also,the rest of us look impossibly hip next to the Amish. There are loads of reasons. I did find out recently that the Amish boom is plateauing, at least. Most publishing houses have filled their Amish Writer Quotas, and in an industry where platform is the new black, that means that either you're already in, or you get to do something else. A new sub-genre will get its turn in the spotlight shortly. In the past we've seen Chick-Lit, suspense, and Prairie Fiction do really well. We'll see what comes next.

5.) The popularity of Amish Fiction represents a Christian world-view shift.

This is an interesting idea. In this blog, Mike Duran posits (sorry, watching lots of Fringe these days) that Christians are veering away from material that contains elements of the supernatural, that they avoid the mysterious. Duran argues that the Bible, what with the fish taxi and the speaking snake (oh, and the speaking mule), and the angels and the prince of the air and the curses and the locusts and the food appearing on the ground and the visions and the prophecies food multiplying and the dead being raised (reanimation? Sorry, like I said, watching Fringe) and the RESURRECTION, scripture alone includes a lot of weird. We won't even talk about end-times prophecy.

My theory on the subject is that Christians, by and large, like their spiritually-oriented paranormal material to be served straight-up. By that, I mean they want it to stay within the covers of their Bible. Because outside of that, you've got a lot of tricky theological decisions about what kinds of weird are okay, and which are twisting spiritual truths incorrectly and not okay, or downright occultic.

It's true, though, that many believers like to skip over the weirder passages of Scripture. Other believers prefer to believe a lot of the stranger bits are literary devices. We live is a post-modern world that clings to science and reason and avoids or negates the inexplicable. To think that post-modernism hasn't crept into the church is unrealistic.

Now, to say that non-paranormal stories are bland and avoid mystery is unfair. To quote Proverbs 30:18-19, "There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a maiden." Life is mysterious. Romance is mysterious.

There's a lot of thoughts there, not necessarily a lot of conclusions.

What do you think?

The "Why?" of Christian media

This is a subject I've been thinking about for a little while, first in regard to Christian music, and second in regard to fiction.

There's a lot of say about Christian film, none of it really any good, so I'm skipping it for the time being. I may change my mind as this blog progresses.

First up - the book is coming along. Not as fast as I'd like - I didn't make two chapters this last week. The one chapter was slow, slow going. Very slow going. Golf tournament slow. Made for TV British historical melodrama slow (do you ever notice how fond the British are of whispering? Whispering women. Can't understand what they're saying, and it happens all the time. Sorry. Back on track...). But the chapter is finished, the next started, all will be well, and I'm still perfectly on target.

Totally lost my train of thought. Christian Media. Christian Music. I was thinking about Christian music last night while we were doing the dishes and making pizza (note to single women: marry the pizza man). Danny put on Michelle Tumes, and I found myself enjoying it. This is a bit unusual, since I really don't listen to Christian music anymore. The last few years, I've found it all somewhere between homogenous and weird. The last Christian CD I purchased was Todd Agnew's last release. I love songs from his first and second album, but the third had an identity crisis and was too weird (with the exception of the duet w/ RSJ) to listen to in my car with the windows rolled down. The artists I like best are all crossovers - Leigh Nash, Anberlin, and Lifehouse.

The growing trend I've seen in CCM is a gravitation toward very worship-driven music. And there's a place for that. I just can't listen to it all the time.

Maybe it's because I don't live in the Bible Belt.

My guess is that the worship-oriented stuff sells because people can't get it anywhere else. If they want something relaxing, they buy Enya; Country, Rascal Flats; Pop, Kelly Clarkson. Worship? Then they turn to CCM.

That's just my thought, and it may not be true. But it feels true, because if you look at what CCM put out around ten years ago, it's astounding. Early Nichole Nordman, Bleach, Caedmon's Call 40 Acres, The Normals, Rebecca St. James, Michelle Tumes, Early Kutless (before most of the band bailed), and...*sigh*...remember when the Newsboys stood up to the microphone? The Jars' original album, the first W's release? There were a lot of different sounds going on.

Now everything sounds like it's being mixed by the same band of music producers, and Christian music has become much more formulaic. And Christian rock? Rock & Roll (as Jack Black taught us in School of Rock) is about sticking it to the Man. Most Christians don't believe in sticking it to the man, and efforts to stick it to the prince of darkness haven't been terribly successful.

(Unless it's Demon Hunter, as my brother pointed out, especially with their 2007 release Storm the Gates of Hell. But that's Demon Hunter, and they're hard core.)

So that was my music theory: people don't buy Christian music unless they have to. Then I started wondering if they do the same with Christian fiction. Because what sells best in Chistian fiction is the really safe stuff. Edgy and applicable isn't selling, not unless it's historical or (here it comes...) Amish. If people want to think and read at the same time, they'll pick up something secular, or worse yet, non-fiction (gasp!).

(I heard you, back there in the corner with the nasally voice, there's The Shack. It know. It's just the one shack, though. There's a whole lot of non-shack drowning it out.)

I blog about Christian media fairly reguarly, because it's a real head-scratcher to me. I am heartened that Red's new release is second on Billboard's Christian charts, but then again we've got the fact that Christian media is a segregated art form, placed far away from secular fiction shelves and certain away from its musical genre counterparts.

Don't know what to do about this, because all of it's run by businesses who want to stay in business. Darn them. They want to produce things that will sell. And that's tough in a rocky economy.

Pray that the economy turns around. Economy turns around, recording labels and publishing houses get to a point when they can afford to take the occasional risk. I miss risks. They can be fun to listen to.