Liz Curtis Higgs credits Christian retailers as helping to establish and disciple her as a young believer

When Liz Curtis Higgs came to know Christ in 1982, she quickly found herself alone in her faith walk—but Christian retailers became her biggest encouragers.

Higgs’ mentors moved away almost immediately after she was saved, and, although she knew a few people at the church she attended, she was virtually alone as she began her walk with God. Still, Christian retailers who kept her supplied with the best books on the topics she sought, including her first Bible, a Ryrie Study Bible, became her steady helpers.

“The first time I walked into a Christian bookstore I felt like I was in a parallel universe. I said, ‘Wow! This is a whole store about Jesus,’ ” said Higgs with her signature hearty laugh. “They became my go-to source. They filled my arms with books and I was so grateful.”

Today Higgs is author of 30 books with more than 4.5 million in print, from her perennial best-selling “Bad Girls of the Bible” series to children’s books to award-winning historical fiction. Within months of her salvation, she began teaching, and not long after that sensed God was calling her to write. Thomas Nelson published her first book, “One Size Fits All” and Other Fables in 1993, and WaterBrook Press released one of her most popular titles, Bad Girls of the Bible, in 1999.

WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group is reissuing Bad Girls of the Bible this month, and has retooled the book’s DVD curriculum. 

To mark the release of the refreshed book and curriculum, Higgs is launching her Bad Girls thank-you tour July 22 in Boston. She’ll be in Oklahoma City, Okla., Nashville and Grand Rapids, Mich., the following week visiting Christian retail stores and the headquarters of Mardel Christian & Education, LifeWay Christian Stores, Family Christian Stores and Christian Book Distributors. She’ll lead devotions or Bible studies at the stores and headquarters.

“Christian retail has been so good to me,” Higgs said. “They keep my books on the shelves from those in the early 2000s right up to the most recent. When I moved into historical fiction, Christian retailers just went for it. They have my back and have been there year after year.”

Rachel McRae, book buyer for adult trade books for LifeWay Christian Stores, said: “Liz is one of our top authors in fiction and nonfiction for the whole chain.”

McRae is quick to call Higgs an evergreen seller and a top-selling author in women’s and fiction categories. 

“Her fiction fans continue to grow with each new release. We love to promote Liz and keep her in front of customers,” she added.

Stephen W. Cobb, president and publisher at WaterBrook Multnomah, remembers Higgs as one of the earliest contracted authors with Bad Girls of the Bible when WaterBrook Press started. 

“The message of that book is outstanding and timeless, and we’ve made every effort to refresh the packaging,” Cobb said. “It’s been a spectacular performer, and the other books in the series have done well, too.”

Others in the series include Really Bad Girls of the Bible, Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible and Unveiling Mary Magdalene.

WaterBrook will release her newest book, The Women of Christmas: Experience the Season Afresh with Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna, in September. Higgs created the original content for an online Bible study on her blog, which had about 5,000 signed up for the study.

“Her online Bible study was so popular that we all decided it needed to be a book,” said Beverly Rykerd, publicity manager for WaterBrook Multnomah. “Liz is smart, easy to work with, very talented, and boy, can she pull the meat out of a Bible verse!”

Cobb calls Higgs unique in a publishing sense because she writes outstanding nonfiction, but is also a best-selling novelist with her historical series set in Scotland and her contemporary fiction. She has been nominated for numerous Christy Awards and has won several. Her historical fiction includes Thorn in My Heart, first in a four-book series; Here Burns My Candle, first in a two-book series; and the Victorian Christmas novella A Wreath of Snow, a 2013 Christy Award finalist. 

Her four “Parable” books for children are Gold Medallion Book Award winners. Awards aside, though, Higgs represents the core of the Christian publishing industry, “being engaged in personal relationship with God and in disciplined study of His Word,” Cobb said.

“She is a Bible teacher who is not bound by format or genre,” he added. “Her novels lend themselves to Bible study, and her nonfiction is deeply rooted in Scripture and certainly fit for study.”

Add to that her full speaking and travel schedule and her personal touch. 

“Most every time she travels she makes time to visit Christian bookstores to meet their frontliners, visit with customers in the store and sign books,” Cobb said. “She makes a great effort to maintain the touch.”

Higgs happily confesses that one of her favorite things to do is what she calls “a drive-by signing.” 

“I just stop in at a Christian bookstore and say ‘hi’ and ask to sign books,” she said. “I’ve often thought that if I could convince a store to let me be a worker, I would learn so much.”

She commends Christian retailers for their wisdom in getting to know authors and see their hearts, to ask questions, and for their personal service and wisdom in stocking good books.

“I’ve always understood Christian retail to be a ministry, and ministry happens because people hand-sell those books,” said Higgs. “I want Christian retailers to see who I really am and that this is a woman they can stand behind. They have the right and responsibility to examine those who write.”

Higgs is reaching a new audience, thanks to her “Righteous Ruth Rap,” a live recording from her appearance in Little Rock, Ark., that is taking YouTube by storm. Based on her book The Girl’s Still Got It: Take A Walk with Ruth and the God Who Rocked Her World (WaterBrook, 2012), Higgs offered the rap as a summary to those who hadn’t heard her previous teaching on Ruth. She’s also working on a music video to go with the new edition of Bad Girls of the Bible.

The key, according to Higgs, is helping readers however she can, whether through rap, discussion questions, video teaching, study guides, meeting readers in stores or at speaking events, or encouraging the Christian retailers who stock her books.

“I grieve every time I hear that a Christian retailer has to close its doors. It hurts,” she said. “They offer personal service and knowledge of the books on the shelves—something no online retailer can. The bottom line for me is that it’s always about ministry rather than promotion. I’ll do anything to let our retailers know they make a difference.”

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