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

First off, corrections! DL incorrectly states that Joshua Dease is one of our upcoming interviewees--in reality it is Joshua Pease. Sorry! Also during the interview DL says that This Present Darkness has sold over ten million copies--this is not true and she has no idea where she got that number. The number is closer to 3 million.  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 (1996) by Tim Lahaye and 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.