This may interest nobody, but I get asked often enough -- more and more these days -- how I landed a book deal, so I figured a short bullet-point chronology might be worth sharing. I was halfway inspired by this post from Jeffrey Overstreet, also.

This is the story.

If you're interested in the practical tips, go here and here.

- In 1997, the week Becky and I moved from Houston, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee, I begin work on a novel that would become Otherworld.

- 5 years later, I finish it.

- I send it in to The Writer's Edge, a manuscript screening service that serves as an editorial filter (of sorts) for Christian publishers. This was before nearly every Christian publisher required agented submissions. (I don't even know if The Writer's Edge is still in operation or if many publishers use it to help survey what's available.) Otherworld is accepted for feature by TWE in their newsletter to publishers. Nobody bites.

- Because my wife worked at LifeWay, she was often asked by reps from Christian publishing companies (who were pitching her children's product to sell in the stores) how my writing is going. One day one of them asks to see my novel. She ends up liking it and recommends I contact a particular agent and use her name as a referral. I do.

- A couple of months later I hear from the agent, Steve Laube who was then at The Literary Group, New York. His intern had picked up Otherworld to take home that night and couldn't put it down, finishing the whole thing overnight. On the intern's recommendation, Steve took a look and was smitten. He offered to represent me, as he represented TLG's Christian publishing efforts.

- Several months into Steve's shopping the work, an editor at Strang Communications is interested. Strang is launching a speculative fiction imprint called Realms and he wants Otherworld to be one of the five books they launch the imprint with. I get really excited.

- My excitement turns to disappointment when the editor says he can't sell his pub board on the book. Turns out they think women readers don't want to read about UFO's. I am confused because while the book has talk of UFO's, it's not about UFO's, and I can't understand why a publisher interested in courting women readers would launch a speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural thrillers) line in the first place. Just go with the Amish romance stuff like everybody else. So I don't get published. And Realms only lasts a couple of years. Connection? You decide. ;-)

- After being turned down by everybody else, and despite their all saying nice things about the book -- eg. "It's fantastic! But not for us." -- I go back to the drawing board. In early 2002, I had begun work on a novel called Black Dog Man. Ambitious in length and theme, it takes me three years to write.

- Black Dog Man, in my estimation, is still the best thing I've ever written, but because it's 667 pages long, I have practically no shot as an unknown, unpublished author of getting a publisher to take a chance on it. My agent only shows it to a few houses. Of those, a minority respond. Of those, only one or two liked it. But they say it's too much of a book to take so much of a risk on too much of a nobody. After 3 years doing my best writing, I'm really deflated.

- My agent leaves The Literary Group and establishes his own agency. I am relieved when he takes me with him as a client. At TLG, I shared an agency with Britney Spears and that dude who was the kid in October Sky (not Jake Gyllenhaal, the real life dude). At the new agency I share a roster with A.W. Tozer and the late Dr. Walter Martin.

- I meet Steve for the first time face to face at a writer's conference in Nashville in, I think, 2005. I'm not actually attending the conference because I can't afford to. I just go to the hotel and sneak in to meet him for lunch. We talk about writing and together we brainstorm an idea for a third novel. I start writing that very week. It is called Echo Island and it is awesome. If I do say so myself. It is a "where did everybody go?"-style story, part "Lost," part "Twilight Zone," part Paul Auster.

- Halfway through writing Echo Island, I have to stop because I have begun leading a young adult ministry at my church called Element, and I have no time to pursue writing fiction. One of the first series I preach, though, is called "Old School Jesus." These twelve sermons become the basis for a non-fiction book proposal. I am titling this book The Unvarnished Jesus. I pitch it to my agent. He says, "I don't know, Jared. You're a fiction guy. Publishing non-fiction requires having a platform of some kind." I say, "Well, this is all I've got right now. Let's at least give it a try."

- One editor at a major Christian publisher really likes the Jesus book. I get excited. But he has to sell the pub board on it. Here we go again. They're not as sold as he is, so it's a no go. I get discouraged again. I wonder if this will ever happen for me.

- In summer 2008, another publisher calls. They want it. So The Unvarnished Jesus gets picked up by Kregel, gets renamed Your Jesus is Too Safe, and after 12 years of trying to get published, my 25-year dream of being an author is realized when the book debuts in the summer of 2009.

- Shortly thereafter, a publisher solicits me. That was kinda cool. Threads wants a Bible study. This ends up being Abide, which began as an Element message series called "God vs. Suburbia."

- I move to Vermont. I ask my agent, "Hey, I've got 2.5 novels. What about going back and trying to polish one of those up?" He says, "I don't know, Jared, you're really more of a non-fiction guy." To prove it, he shops a proposal for a book I'm working on called Gospel Wakefulness to publishers, and Crossway bites. But they not only want that book, they want whatever my second book will be, which I've neither pitched nor written! This is a great affirmation to me that maybe I've got what it takes to give this writing thing more than a flash-in-the-pan go.

But I still want to come back to fiction someday (soon). I have stories to tell.

If you made it to the end, I hope you found this inspiring and/or helpful. Do good work, get better, and don't give up.