About the Christian Publishing Industry

Christian fiction has experienced much growth over the past decade. As it has become more popular, the numbers of new authors and new genres has exploded--and so has the quality available. Novelists like Frank Peretti, T.L. Hines and Ted Dekker have done much to help Christian fiction cross the boundary from the safe "church-lady" fiction to fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, yes, and even horror written from a Christian worldview.

These authors are published by members of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) who market to members of the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA). To hear many in the world of Christian fiction speak, these groups are the end-all and be-all. To the reader and consumer of Christian fiction they represent the totality of the industry. But the story does not end there. Not by a long shot. There are many misnomers and misunderstandings about the Christian fiction industry.

The terms CBA and ABA are used by authors (and others, we're sure) to denote types of publishers. CBA and ABA do not refer to publishers at all.

Oft times the distinction made between the CBA and ABA is one of Christian versus secular. This is a misnomer. While CBA is certainly a Christian organization, the ABA is not an exclusive group in that there are Christian members as well as secular (and other religions, for that matter).

Besides these two groups, there is a third and not often mentioned group that is important to include in discussions about Christian publishing: ECPA.

There are a few points that this article will focus on:

1. The three acronyms above need clarification and appropriate usage in order to clearly communicate issues, questions, statements.
2. The Christian publishing industry is not exclusive to one or two organizations, as much as they are portrayed (and portray themselves) as such.
3. Because of the misunderstanding about the Christian fiction industry, many good authors and good books go unrecognized or undervalued.

First, let's define some terms.

Exactly, what is ABA? ABA is a group of independent booksellers (not ALL book sellers, just a group) who've banded together to make life easier for themselves. This group is comprised of all kinds of booksellers (both Christian and non-Christian). ABA stands for American Booksellers Association and it was established in the year 1900.
You don't have to associate yourself with ABA to take advantage of what they have to offer.

• They offer programs that help authors and their publishers to get their books known by this large group of booksellers. (ABA charges publishers per program they'd like to be involved in. None of the charges are high (see below))
• They don't have the strict content guidelines of CBA; individual bookstores act independently and choose to shelve books acording to demand, merit and the theme of their bookstore, much in the way Borders or Barnes & Noble does (who, by the way, are not part of the ABA).
• ABA stores work with publishers all all types: Christian, secular, other religion, etc.
• The ABA site allows anyone to search their membership data base so that one can determine if a local bookstore is part of their association or not.
  

CBA is a group of Christian Book Sellers (not all Christian book sellers, just a group. Some independent Christian booksellers choose not to be a part of the CBA. But it is their choice.) Some publishers, I assume, decide to form alliances with this group to ensure a place for their books to go once they're published. Making "getting it out there" a little easier.

• CBA stands for Christian Booksellers Association; it calls itself the "Organization for Christian Retail."
• The association started in 1950.
• CBA database of members is closed to the public.

The third group that needs description is the ECPA: Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. This is the group of publishers that people often erroneously refer to as "CBA."

• Membership in this group is divided into two categories for publishers: voting members (dues $1500 - $15 000) and small press membership ($600).
• They sponsor the Christian Book Awards: Based on excellence in content, literary quality, design, and significance of contribution, the Christian Book Awards are the oldest and among the most prestigious in the religious publishing industry.

In addition, the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association adheres to a Statement of Faith that is "essentially identical to that of the National Association of Evangelicals."[4] Not every Christian publisher shares the same intentions or adheres to a similar statement of faith; however, most of the major Christian retail chains are members of the Christian Booksellers Association, and most of the major Christian publishers are members of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

**NOTE: the Christy awards do not appear to be as restrictive about eligibility.

There are, of course, other publisher and bookseller organizations. Booksellers like Barnes & Noble, Amazon/ Borders do not belong to the ABA. Each bookseller or publisher will have guidelines about what books they carry/ publish. Check these before you submit.

These two terms ABA and CBA are often used to deonte secular v. Christian publishers. These two groups are bookseller organizations-not publishers at all.

The sad part is, because of this, there are wonderful Christian booksellers who are members of the ABA but are being called secular by authors and many Christians are clinging to the word Christian as though this means if you're not CBA then you must be secular.

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Few authors seem to realize that the ABA work with Christian publishers as well and it doesn't make those publishers any less Christian. If people understood this they wouldn't be making statements like, "I submitted to a CBA publisher but just decided to go SECULAR because my work didn't meet the requirements of the publisher."

No, a secular publisher is not your only choice. There are Christian publishers who choose not to be affliated with the CBA (a small fee of $200/ year) because of their strict guidelines for content.

However, as one of the chief complaints about Christian fiction sold by CBA members and published by ECPA members is the adherence to these strict content guidelines, publishers who want to market edgy Christian fiction genres not popular with the CBA stores are not willing to compromise quality for an affiliation. An article in the Journal of Religion says this:

[43] Critics both within and without the industry complain about the poor quality of Christian fiction (in comparison to secular standards) and attribute its poverty to the absence of good writers, to poor instruction, to the underdevelopment of spiritual themes, and to the limitations placed upon it by a conservative readership.("The Production of Christian Fiction" Jonathan Cordero, Journal of Religion, 2004)

It is a real shame that so many in the industry equate ECPA/ CBA as the only "real" places to have their work published and sold. In fact, this myth is perpetuated by these two groups themselves. For instance, The Christian Book Awards mentioned above, in a 2007 press release, ECPA President Mark Kuyper, describes "The Christian Book Awards consistently honor the best of the best in religious publishing," says ECPA President Mark Kuyper." What Mr. Kuyper fails to say is found in the awards fine print:

The publishing company of the entered title must be an ECPA member in order to participate in the awards program. (ECPA website)

ABA versus CBA doesn't translate Secular versus Christian. It never has meant that.

Authors do not have to wring their hands about not being accepted by ECPA publishers or publishers not affiliated with the CBA. There are other options, and good ones-especially if you are firm in your belief that your writing style and preferred genre is your ministry and you are reluctant to modify your talent to meet the guidelines of this one group of publishing companies and this one group of booksellers.

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Some industry results of the misunderstanding:

• many authors may feel undervalued because their fiction is not acceptable to ECPA publishers (or a "CBA book")
• industry folks (whether authors, publicists, or publishers) immediately discount the quality of a novel if it is not a "CBA book"
• major blog tours such as the CFBA (Christian Fiction Blog Alliance) will not tour non-"CBA books" because of "inferior quality" amongst other issues such as time/ space limitations. At least currently, the "CBA"-only policy is now posted on their site.
• novelists are reluctant to check out and submit to non-"CBA publishers"
• novels are not eligible for awards touted as "the best of Christian fiction"
• publishers independent of the CBA and ECPA are considered inferior: a place of last resort
• the general book-buying public, whether Christian or not, do not know the difference between CBA, ECPA and Christian fiction. The ECPA and CBA touts themselves as "the one and only" and this is misleading.

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Some things to ponder: more Christian fiction (especially the edgy speculative fiction) is sold by non-CBA stores like Barnes & Noble and Borders and ABA bookstores.

• If your ministry includes being read by a wide audience, then is it prudent to aspire to be accepted by CBA bookstores and ECPA publishers?
• If the CBA stores and ECPA publishers are not the only game in town, is it worth your while to try to change their guidelines?
• The CBA and ECPA have their mission statements and policies established. Is it not selfish to ask them to change these so your fiction can be included?