About the Christian Publishing Industry

ABA V. CBA: Secular and Christian?

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.