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In the fall of 2003, Cecil "Cec" Murphey, a professional writer who has written or co-authored more than 100 books, got a call from a Texas Baptist minister named Don Piper. Back in the late 1980s, Piper had been in a horrific auto accident—his Ford Escort was literally run over by a semi truck. His left leg had been pulverized, his right leg broken, his pelvis shattered, and his left arm nearly severed. Yet Piper fought back and learned to walk again—an almost miraculous recovery.

The problem was in writing about another part of Piper's story.

When Texas state troopers arrived at the scene of his accident, they found no pulse, so they covered Piper with a tarp and began clearing traffic. When another Baptist pastor, Dick Onerecker, arrived on the scene, he prayed for Piper and sang several hymns. In the middle of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," Onerecker heard Piper singing along.

During the 90 minutes between the accident and his reawakening, Piper says he went to heaven. He stood before a gate made of pearl and was welcomed by loved ones. Just before passing through the gate, Piper felt snatched back to earth and woke up in his crushed Ford.

Murphey, a former pastor, thought Piper's tale resembled something out of Embraced by the Light and told Piper he couldn't help him write a book about it. But Piper persisted. After praying, Murphey agreed to collaborate on the project. The more he worked on the book, the more he realized its potential.

"I had a gut feeling: It was either going to be a big book or a total flop," Murphey says. He thought a big book was more likely—perhaps even big enough to land Murphey on The New York Times bestseller list for the first time in his long career.

Three years and nearly 1.5 million copies later, Piper and Murphey's collaboration, 90 Minutes in Heaven, is one of the bestselling Christian books in America and a sign of the unpredictable nature of Christian publishing. It is good news in a nervous industry, an unexpected bonus in a time of slipping sales and publisher consolidation, when everyone is waiting for the Next Big Thing.

Discerning exactly what's happening in publishing is tricky. Unlike the film industry, where finding the latest box-office figures is as easy as typing boxofficemojo.com, the sales figures for books are a mystery.

Publishers release good news: Zondervan, for example, will mention that it's sold 250,000 copies of its audio Bible Experience, 250,000 copies of Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis, and 30 million copies of The Purpose-Driven Life. Thomas Nelson touts its 19 New York Times bestsellers and the fact that 49 of its books sold at least 100,000 copies last year, including Blue Like Jazz, which is now approaching a million sales overall. But neither publisher releases comprehensive sales data.

"There is no objective way to track sales data in the book publishing industry," Lynn Garrett, religion editor of Publishers Weekly, told CT. "The only way you can get sales data is from publishers themselves—so you kind of have to believe what they tell you."

In recent years, Christian publishing has enjoyed a string of Godzilla-sized hits—starting with the Left Behind series (with sales of more than 60 million copies), followed by The Prayer of Jabez (more than 9 million sold), and then The Purpose-Driven Life. While these books have been a boon to publishers and retailers, they skew the market, says Garrett.

"In the Christian market, everybody is looking for the next Purpose-Driven Life," she says. "Sales of Christian books were down slightly last year because there was no huge blockbuster." According to the American Association of Publishers, sales of religious books fell 10.2 percent in 2006.

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June 2007, Vol. 51, No. 6