Success Quote by Jerry B. Jenkins

There is something almost defiantly pragmatic in Jerry B. Jenkins framing art as a competitive enterprise: not just stories that soothe a niche audience, but fiction that can stand in the "marketplace of ideas". It borrows the language of civic debate and capitalism at once, implying that novels and movies are not merely entertainment products; they are arguments with character arcs.

The intent is clear: Jenkins wants reach. "Inform and entertain" is a deliberate refusal of the old binary where serious ideas must arrive dressed in solemnity. He’s staking a claim for popular storytelling as a legitimate vehicle for persuasion and worldview-shaping, especially in mediums that reward momentum and clarity. The word "compete" matters. It suggests he sees culture as contested territory: attention is scarce, values are up for grabs, and the stories that win are the ones that move fastest and hit hardest emotionally.

The subtext is also a defense against the accusation of didacticism. By placing his work in a "marketplace", he implies consent: readers and viewers choose, reject, argue back. It’s not coercion; it’s competition. That’s a savvy positioning for a novelist associated with high-circulation, message-forward fiction, where critics may see propaganda and fans see purpose.

Contextually, this is the late-20th/early-21st-century media environment talking: books and films as rival pipelines of meaning, fighting algorithms, franchises, and ideology fatigue. Jenkins isn’t apologizing for wanting influence. He’s professionalizing it, making persuasion sound like craft, not sermon.