Author and pastor Steven Furtick debuts on PW’s Religion Nonfiction list at #4 with a message about self-acceptance in (Un)Qualified: How God Uses Broken People to Do Big Things. Authors such as Bishop T.D. Jakes, Mark Batterson, and Lysa TerKeurst have blurbed the book, with TerKeurst calling it “such a needed message for today.”
Joyce Meyer’s new release, Overload: How to Unplug, Unwind, and Unleash Yourself from the Pressure of Stress, took #7 on the list. The guide to tranquility is the latest in a wave of books written by women, for women.
Two editions of Sarah Young’s perennial bestseller, Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace appear on the Religion Nonfiction list: the trade paper is #1 on the list and the deluxe edition of the devotional lands at #6. Both saw sales increase in the weeks leading up to Easter. John Burke’s 2015 collection of stories about near death experiences, Imagine Heaven, is at #9 following a marketing campaign that also benefited from the Lenten/Easter season. In addition to placements in general market chains across the country, including Wal-Mart, HMS Host airport stores, Target, and more, digital ads for the book ran for six weeks on websites such as GodTube, BeliefNet, and Bible Gateway.
On our Religion Fiction list, March saw a surge in sales for books with film companions, including novelizations Risen by Angela Hunt and God’s Not Dead 2 by Travis Thrasher, which ranked at #3 and #4, respectively. Books with big-screen adaptions on the list are Anne Rice’s The Young Messiah at #5, The Shack by William Paul Young at #7, and Chris Fabry’s War Room at #9.
Wanda Brunstetter, who came in at #1 last month with The Restoration, topped the Religion Fiction list again in March with the first installment to her Amish Millionaire series, The English Son, co-written with her daughter-in-law, Jean Brunstetter. The new series is modeled after Brunstetter’s successful 2013 serial novel series, The Discovery—A Lancaster County Saga, and it includes six parts that will release consecutively each month through August.
