Success Quote by Jerry B. Jenkins

“Books that do a tenth of what Left Behind has done are smashing successes” is less a brag than a calibration of cultural scale. Jenkins is talking like a working novelist who has watched the industry anoint midlist victories while his own series detonated into something closer to a franchise: bestselling novels, spin-offs, kids’ editions, movies, sermons, talking points. The line lands because it’s understated. He doesn’t claim greatness; he claims impact. That’s savvier, and more defensible.

The intent is to normalize an outlier. By measuring success against the “tenth,” Jenkins quietly reframes Left Behind not as a lucky phenomenon or a polarizing evangelical artifact, but as an industrial benchmark. It’s a humblebrag with craft: admiration for the publishing ecosystem (“smashing successes” is generous) paired with a reminder that his book operated on a different tier entirely.

The subtext is about legitimacy and resentment at the same time. Left Behind was routinely dismissed by literary gatekeepers as didactic or kitsch; Jenkins’ metric sidesteps those judgments. Sales, reach, and behavior change become the scorecard. In a culture where prestige is rationed by critics but power is measured by audience, he’s choosing the arena where he wins.

Context matters: the series rode late-1990s millennial anxiety, post-Cold War uncertainty, and American evangelical consolidation into political identity. Jenkins is pointing to a moment when a particular theology became pop narrative, and pop narrative became a kind of soft infrastructure. The quote works because it recognizes the uncomfortable truth of publishing: most writers chase a living; a few accidentally steer the conversation.