The importance of backlist in Christian publishing has been spotlighted in competing best-seller charts for 2010.

Only four titles released last year featured in the top 10 books in three charts of best-sellers for the 12-month period.

Beth Moore's So Long, Insecurity (Tyndale House Publishers) was the fourth biggest seller in Christian stores, according to the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA), making the No. 10 spot in the group's ranking of multi-channel sales and hitting No. 8 on a list produced by Thomas Nelson.

Other 2010 releases that made the top 10s were James Dobson's Bringing Up Girls (Focus on the Family/Tyndale House Publishers) and two novels, Karen Kingsbury's Take Three (Zondervan) and Beverly Lewis' The Telling (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group).

Topping the ECPA multi-channel list and ranking at No. 3 in the ECPA Christian retail list and at No. 4 in Thomas Nelson's list was Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages (Northfield Publishing/Moody Publishers). Thomas Nelson's Jesus Calling devotional by Sarah Young headed the company's own list and the ECPA Christian retail list, and landed at No. 5 on ECPA multi-channel list.

Also featured on each of the three lists were Francis Chan's Crazy Love and Forgotten God (both David C. Cook) and The Love Dare by Alex and Stephen Kendrick (B&H Books/B&H Publishing Group).

William P. Young's The Shack (Windblown Media/Hachette Book Group) was featured in the ECPA multi-channel and Nelson top 10s, but was No. 14 in the ECPA Christian chart. Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life (Zondervan) placed in all three lists, from 16th to 28th.

The two ECPA lists revealed some differences between channels, with Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind (FaithWords) making No. 6 in the multi-channel list, but only placing at No. 24 in the Christian retail list.

Michael Covington, ECPA's information and education director, said: "Christian book buyers are not all the same. While Christian content enjoys very broad distribution today, it's obvious that certain titles sell better through channels that are shopped more heavily by the core Christian book consumer."

The ECPA lists were based on data drawn from its Christian PubTrack sales tracking service. The Nelson list was drawn from a proprietary database of various point-of-sale systems from multiple channels.

Introducing his company's rankings in a blog post, Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt wrote that the list "is not perfect," missing data from some large mass-merchant accounts and ministry or direct sales. Also excluding e-books and sales outside the U.S., it "primarily represents sales through traditional bookstores, both general market and Christian specialty stores."

Responding to online comments on his posting, Hyatt said that he thought the rankings' preponderance of established names reflected "a conservatism all through the system.

"Consumers have had less discretionary money, so they are less likely to try new authors," he wrote. "They gravitate to the 'tried and true.' Retailers, trying to meet these expectations, are less likely to try new authors, as are publishers." 

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