HOW DID YOU GET PUBLISHED?

The short answer is “Divine Providence.” The somewhat longer answer involves more than 80 rejections from literary agents before my book was discovered through my blog.

In 2002, I finished a novel, revised it, polished it, and decided I was ready to venture into the big wide world of publishing. I drafted a query letter, revised it with help from some friends, polished it, and sent it out. And sent it out. And sent it out. Revised it slightly and sent it out. And sent it out. And sent it out. I did this, mmm, about 60 times—until I’d exhausted my list of legitimate ABA (American Bookseller Association) agents who handled my genre. During all of this, I’d been wondering if I really should try to be selling my book to the CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) instead—it did, after all, have some strong spiritual overtones. So, I built a list of CBA agents and began querying them. Same result: nothing. Mind you, I had some close calls during all this, including a few agents who said they’d like to read something else.

Seeing no other realistic options, I chalked the first book up to experience, put it in a drawer (figuratively speaking), and began writing another. After nine or so months, I had it in pretty good shape, and felt it was time to start querying again. So, yes, I started at the top of my previously-assembled agent list again. If an agent had responded positively to my first book, I reminded her and asked if she wanted to see the next one. I got a lot of reads, but still no offer.

After exhausting about half of my agent list on queries for the second book, I decided I was wasting too much time and energy worrying about becoming a published novelist.

So, I stopped. I began writing a third book, and put a moratorium on new queries. I decided I’d simply write, and concentrate on that alone. Publication, well, I’d worry about that at some undefined future date.

That’s when the magic happened.

Not long after my decision, in April of 2005, I received an email from Dave Long, an Acquisitions Editor for Bethany House Publishers. “Discovered your blog,” it said, “and downloaded the first chapter of your book. Don’t know if you’d be interested in pursuing publication with a CBA publisher, but I’d like to see more.” The book he was referring to was the first book I’d written—the one I frankly hadn’t opened and looked at for more than a year. Well, heck, so what if I hadn’t been trying to market that particular book? He wanted a partial; I sent him a partial. Dave wrote back, asking for the whole thing, so I sent that to him. A month later, he wrote back to say he was taking it to editorial review, pitching it to the rest of the publishing house. Well, that’s farther than I’ve been before, I thought. Cool.

About a month later, I woke up on the morning of June 21st (my birthday, incidentally), turned to my wife, and said: “Hey, maybe I’ll get a publishing contract as a birthday gift.” We both snickered because, well, because. My comment was said as--and received as--a joke.

By now, you’re probably thinking I received The Call on my birthday, aren’t you? A wonderful, unexpected, fairy tale resolution. A Christmas miracle in June. Well, it didn’t quite happen that way. Instead, The Call came on June 22nd...the day after my birthday.

I’ve since told Dave he was a day late with my birthday gift.

Not that I’m complaining.