By Debby Giusti
If you love Amish fiction, be sure to enter the Amish Hearts & Hearths Giveaway, featuring 13 of your favorite authors who write Amish romance. A total of 39 entrants will win an ebook, and one lucky Grand Winner will receive all 13 stories!
Enter by May 15 at https://forms.gle/d3quv3GxcwFhBMsp8
Whether you read Amish fiction or not, you may be wondering how the Amish genre that's taken the Christian market by storm got started.I blame Ada Ranch Buchwalter. Born in 1886, Ada grew up as an Old Order Mennonite. She later rejected the Plain life and was subsequently shunned by her community. The fictionalized story of Ada’s decision to leave her Mennonite sect was the basis for The Shunning, a novel written by her granddaughter, Beverly Lewis. Published in 1997 by Bethany House, The Shunning was an almost overnight success, went on to become a Hallmark movie and, to date, has sold more than a million copies.
Steve Oates was vice president of marketing for Bethany House at the time, and in an interview with Deborah Kennedy, Oates talked about Bethany House’s initial response to Lewis’s submission. “We thought it was a good, sweet story and that there was potential for it to sell maybe 25,000 in the first year,” he recounts.
Add another 100,000 sales to his modest assessment of the story’s anticipated success, and you’ll have a more accurate account of the book’s first year marketing history. The Shunning showed publishers how the simple life could capture the hearts of readers who were soon eagerly clamoring for more Amish stories.
Fast forward to 2013 and a Wall Street Journal article by Valerie Weaver-Zercher (“Why Amish Novels are Hot,” June 6, 2013) that highlighted the growth of Amish fiction since that first Lewis novel hit the shelves.
Weaver-Zercher writes, “In 2003, one new romance novel with an Amish theme was published. This year at least 86 are being released. Five of the top 10 best sellers on a recent list of Christian fiction were Amish titles, and the novels regularly hit mainstream best-seller lists. The top three authors of Amish romance novels— Beverly Lewis, Cindy Woodsmall and Wanda Brunstetter—have sold among them more than 24 million books.”
I first met fellow Georgian, Cindy Woodsmall, at the Atlanta airport when we were were both en route to an ACFW conference. Her debut novel had recently released, and she shared some of the struggle she had faced on her journey to publication, which she also recounts on her website. When Cindy started submitting, publishers backed away. Beverly Lewis was successful, and they didn’t feel there was room for another author writing Amish stories. In 2005, WaterBrook Multnomah took a chance and offered Cindy a three-book contract. A few months later, Wanda Brunstetter’s first Amish book was released. Cindy’s debut novel hit bookstores the following year and sold out within two weeks.
When books sell, editors take note, and so do writers who quickly jumped aboard the Amish bandwagon as the popularity of bonnet fiction increased.
Some folks speculate that the glut of sexually explicit books has caused so many readers—folks searching for a good story without the sexual sensationalism—to embrace the Amish genre. A perfect storm, so to speak, but in a positive way that accounts for the increased sales.
That may play into the mix, but to me, the draw seems fairly straightforward. Readers yearn for a connection that features home and hearth. Add faith and a happily ever after and you have some of the reasons for the growing success of Christian fiction. Plop a bonnet—or prayer kapp—on the heads of the heroines of those stories, and you've got a combination that keeps books flying off the shelves.
Do you enjoy Amish fiction? If so, what’s the draw for you? Maybe you haven’t read any stories with a bonnet on the cover. Is there a reason, and if not, are you willing to give Amish fiction a try? Share the names of any Amish books you’ve enjoyed or stories that made you see the Amish in a new light.
Leave a comment to be entered in a drawing for HIDDEN AMISH SECRETS. Be sure to enter the Amish Hearts & Heath Giveaway, as well!
Happy writing! Happy reading!
Wishing you abundant blessings,
Debby Giusti
HIDDEN AMISH SECRETS
Her temporary Amish homecoming
could get her killed.
Julianne Graber left her Amish life behind after a family
tragedy, but now she’s back to sell the family home— and someone’s dead set on
getting rid of her. With her neighbor William Lavy by her side, Julianne must
uncover dangerous secrets to make sense of the past and present. Can she find
justice for her family—and a future with Will—before the killer hits his
target?
Order on Amazon!
