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"If you died today, are you 100 percent sure you would go to heaven?" In a country where more people believe in an afterlife than believe in God, it's likely an effective opening question. Or evangelists could, if their potential converts are patient enough, simply read Bill Wiese's account of being catapulted into hell followed by Don Piper's description of being in heaven.

Readers fascinated by the afterlife are quickly buying 23 Minutes in Hell and 90 Minutes in Heaven. And for the shy evangelist, both authors have speaking ministries which could accommodate the skeptical friend.

Despite vivid descriptions, the books are short on details. The authors spend a combined 54 pages recounting their trips to the afterlife. One hopes that such momentous experiences would produce loquaciousness rather than speechlessness. Still, the accounts keep the curious reading.

"November 22, 1998. That was the night I was catapulted out of my bed into the very pit of hell," Bill Wiese writes in 23 Minutes in Hell. "My point of arrival was a cell that was approximately fifteen feet high by ten feet wide with a fifteen-foot depth."

Two enormous beasts awaited him in the cell. "These creatures were not of this natural world. … 'Evil' and 'Terror' stood before me. Those creatures were an intensely concentrated manifestation of those two forces." Now that's detail you wouldn't deduce from the Bible.

For those considering the comforts of heaven, Don Piper, a Texas pastor, tells his story. In 1989, Piper was heading home from a Baptist conference when he hit a truck head on. "A light enveloped me, with a brilliance beyond earthly comprehension or description." 90 minutes later, Piper returned to life.

Sales of both books are boosted by the authors' speaking engagements. Published on March 7 this year, 23 Minutes in Hell has sold more than 54,000 copies, according to its publisher, Charisma House.

According to Revell, publisher of 90 Minutes in Heaven, the book was a surprise hit. It released in September 2004 and Revell estimated first-year sales would be less than 10,000. Publicity for the book was limited to "one half-page ad in a Christian magazine," according to the publicist. "It since has taken off, and now has more than 800,000 copies in print (more than 500,000 sold in 2005 alone)."

Books on the afterlife have the added bonus of crossover appeal. 23 Minutes in Hell is being advertised on Rush Limbaugh and other secular radio shows. "Books on the afterlife seem to resonate well not only with Christians but also with those interested in the supernatural," says Woodley Auguste, senior publicist for Charisma House.

Charisma House knows the appeal of the afterlife. Since its release on October 7, 2003, Heaven Is So Real by Choo Thomas has sold more than 500,000 copies, including international sales, and the book is still doing well, says Auguste.

Hell, Wiese says, "was hot—far beyond any possibility of sustaining life." (Thankfully, it being hell, everyone but Wiese had already died.) "My flesh should disintegrate from off my body at any moment. The reality was that it didn't." Lots of other things happen in hell, says Wiese, which don't normally happen on earth.

"I was extremely nauseous from the terrible, foul stench coming from these creatures. It was absolutely disgusting, foul, and rotten. It was, by far, the most putrid smells I have ever encountered. … The odor was extremely toxic, and that alone should have killed me." Somehow it didn't.

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May (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50