Frank Peretti's America Episode 2: Baby, Baby, Get My Book on the Bestseller List (Interview with Daniel Silliman)

Hi Friends! Episode 2 of Frank Peretti's America is out now wherever you listen to your podcasts. Listen, then come back here and let us know what you think!

We would also love to share any and all stories you might want to share about your own experiences growing up and learning about spiritual warfare. Drop a story in the comments or email us at propheticimaginationstation@gmail.com.

If you are interested in the Faith in an Age of Fear conference DL mentions, check out the eventbrite here. We would love to see you there! 

Interview with Daniel Silliman, (on twitter @danielsilliman) whose PHD dissertation was on the history of best-selling evangelical novels. He specifically looked at the five novels which changed evangelical publishing in a significant way and sold over a million copies. Those books were:

Love Comes Softly (1979) by Janette Oke

This Present Darkness (1986) by Frank Peretti

Left Behind by Tim Lahaye and (1996) Jerry B. Jenkins

The Shunning (1997) by Beverly Lewis

The Shack by (2007) by William Paul Young

Silliman recounts how the evangelical fiction market primarily courted female book buyers with Christian romance novels, and how Peretti and his “Christian horror” was a new risky genre.

21 min: Silliman mentions Francis Schaeffer and his beliefs on worldviews influencing Crossway publishing to branch out into books like This Present Darkness.

28 min: Silliman gets into the background of Amy Grant and her personal and professional troubles, and why this led to her being so drawn to a little book called This Present Darkness. 

Here’s a link to an LA times piece about Amy Grant being credited for the sales bump, with this particular jewel of a quote from Lane Dennis, CEO of Crossway (Peretti’s publisher): “He has written a book for the so-called Moral Majority. They can hold this up and say, ‘This is how I see the world.”

37: min Jack Chick Tracts and demons.