Today, we are talking with James L. Rubart about how he went from being an unpublished author to a bestselling author.
Thomas: Jim, when did you get started writing?
Jim: I got started in seventh-grade English class. We had to write a short story. I got an A on the paper, and out of 30 students in my class, she chose mine to be filmed with a video camera. That was my baptism into writing, and I discovered I loved it.
In eighth grade, I took journalism and discovered that I loved it even more than I thought I did. But at the end of my eighth-grade year, it all got shut down.
Thomas: What happened?
Jim: After eighth grade, the journalism teacher, who also ran the school paper, selected students from the journalism class to join the paper the following year. But I wasn’t chosen. In my mind, that meant I had no ability to write. So, I pushed the dream aside for years. I’d see the students on the school paper and think, I wish I could do that, but I told myself I had no talent. The dream was still there, but I buried it.
Thomas: I think that happens with a lot of people. Their dream dies; they let it die, or someone kills it. If you think about it, every child is an artist, every child is a singer, and something often happens to kill that inner child. You have to become like a child again before you can inherit the kingdom of writing, so to speak.
How did you get out of the Slough of Despond?
Jim: The dream of writing novels just wouldn’t die. I knew as early as seventh grade that I wanted to be a novelist. That was the dream. But I kept hearing this message: You don’t have the ability to be a writer. It was a lie, but I believed it.
Still, the dream wouldn’t go away. Through my teens, I subscribed to Writer’s Digest magazine, dabbled in short stories, and even took creative writing classes in high school. I couldn’t shut it down entirely, but I also never truly pursued it.
This pattern continued into my 20s. I talked to my wife about the dream. She was very supportive, but I only dabbled in writing. I never showed anyone my writing, and aside from my wife, I never told anyone about the dream. For years, it lay dormant. Through my 20s and 30s, the dream quietly waited.
What was the turning point that made you pursue it fully?
Jim: The inciting incident that made me pursue writing was my wife. One day, Darcy said, “I’m going on a fast.”
I asked, “Really? What for?”
She replied, “I don’t know.”
I said, “Okay. How long are you going to fast?”
“Until I get the answer,” she said.
“Remind me—what’s the question again?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
After 24 hours, I asked, “Darcy, did you get the answer to the question you don’t know?”
She shook her head. “No, not yet.”
At 48 hours, two full days without food, I asked again, “Honey, how long are you going to do this?”
“Until I get the answer,” she said.
“What’s the question?” I asked again.
“I still don’t know,” she replied.
Halfway through day three, we were riding in the car together. And it was one of those moments where God speaks so clearly you can’t ignore it. I heard him say, “Jim, I’ve given you this desire and ability. When are you going to step out of the shadows and into your destiny?” It was like a lightbulb exploding over my head.
I turned to Darcy and said, “I know why you’re fasting.”
She looked at me. “Why?”
“I’m supposed to be a novelist,” I said.
It was something I had known all along, deep down, but now it had come up out of the basement, out of the dungeon, and was right there. God wasn’t saying I had to do it; he was inviting me: “Jim, I’ve given you this opportunity. It’s time to step into it. Won’t you come with Me?”
I looked at Darcy and said again, “I’m supposed to be a novelist.”
She turned to me and said, “Wait a minute. I’ve been hungry for three days, and you get the answer?”
After we laughed about it, I got serious. I started praying, asking God which of my short stories should be turned into a novel. I had written just a single paragraph, barely anything, about a guy who inherits a home that turns out to be his soul. That paragraph became the foundation of my first novel.
Thomas: What was the next step?
Jim: By that point, I had young sons, and the next step was figuring out how to write this novel. I decided I could do anything for 20 minutes a day. I was coaching their teams, attending all their events, and being a very involved dad, but I told myself, “If I can give it 20 minutes a day, I can make progress.”
I committed to writing for 20 minutes a day. From start to finish, it took me about six years. It was a long process, filled with reading books, studying the craft, and trying to figure out what I was doing right and wrong. Those were some of the most discouraging times because I didn’t know if my writing was any good. I was trying my best to make it work, but I didn’t have anyone to guide me or give feedback. I was making it up as I went, and in many ways, it felt very isolating. Writing can be lonely.
But through it all, I had Darcy. My wife was unbelievably supportive during that time, and that made all the difference.
Thomas: As you study the craft of writing, your taste improves faster than your ability to deliver on that taste. You start to understand what good writing is and become better at recognizing bad writing, including your own. Often, you realize, “I’m not as good as I thought I was,” and you begin to see just how much work goes into creating something truly good.
I think a lot of authors skip this stage of reading craft books. Or maybe they read one or two at most and think that’s enough. But it’s not. Especially for fiction, mastering the craft is essential. Your writing has to be strong. It’s the foundation for everything else.
Jim: It has to be a serious study that’s more than just reading one book and deciding, “Now I’m ready to write my novel.” You have to approach it like you’re getting a university education. That means going through a craft book carefully, underlining, taking notes, and then moving on to another book, and another, and another. Then, you go back to the first book, read it again, and deepen your understanding. You ask others, What’s a great craft book? What’s the one I absolutely have to read? And when you find it, you devour it over and over again.
That’s how I learned to write. I dedicated myself to studying the craft of fiction, treating it as an ongoing process, not a one-time task.
In the fall of 2005, I finished my novel. At the time, I had a friend who had recently gotten into the publishing world and knew four editors. He said, “Use my name. Send a query letter out, and let’s see what happens.” So, I sent letters to all four editors.
Three of them responded pretty quickly with basic rejections like, “Sorry, Jim, we don’t have a slot for something like this.” I was okay with that. It wasn’t personal; they just didn’t have room for it.
But the fourth editor wrote back and asked, “Is your novel finished, and how long is it?” I knew a novel had to be complete to be considered, so I was excited. I quickly wrote back, “Yes, it’s finished. It’s 148,000 words.” That gives you an idea of how much I didn’t know at the time because 148,000 words is about a third too long for a debut novel. But I didn’t know that.
I sent it off and waited eagerly to hear back. The next day, I received an email: “It is not my job as an editor to put your book into the position, formatting, and length where it would be considered for publication.”
The tone was terse, and it felt like a rejection. But a small voice inside me wondered, “What if I do get it into shape?”
So, I wrote back asking, “If I can get the word count to where it needs to be, is this something you would consider?”
That same day, he responded, “Dear Jim, you don’t know how privileged you are to get this email from me. I almost didn’t respond. You might consider reading this craft book to get your writing in shape.”
It turned out to be a book I had already read five or six times. I had underlined it, studied it, and thought I’d applied every principle to my novel. Yet here he was, essentially saying, I needed to go back to square one.
What did that tell me? It felt like a confirmation of every doubt I’d ever had: You can’t write. You don’t have the ability. Why don’t you just give up?
He ended the email with a flourish, writing in all caps with exclamation points: “THIS IS OUR LAST COMMUNICATION!!”
And he signed off.
I was just devastated, and I stopped working on my novel. I stopped sending it out to people. I stopped reading fiction because I thought my dream was never going to come true, so I might as well just stop and be done with it.
Thomas: I can’t imagine how discouraging that must have been. You’d been working on this novel for six years after what felt like a clear call. I mean, your wife was fasting. But, as I’ve said before on this show, just because God calls you doesn’t mean the path will be easy.
Look at the Israelites: God called them into the land of Canaan, but they still had to fight giants when they got there. A lot of people assume that God’s call means the path will be smooth, but the heroes of the faith show us that isn’t the case. God called Esther to save the people of Israel, but that didn’t make it easy. She had to risk her life to do it.
You’d put in six years of work, doing everything you thought you needed to do, and you still didn’t see the results. It’s no wonder you felt like giving up.
How did you get out of that dark place?
Jim: One thing I should mention is that I didn’t send the editor my manuscript; I only sent him a query letter. Here’s why that’s important: when he wrote back and told me to consider reading a particular craft book, I was already believing the lie that I couldn’t write. But what was he actually judging that on? Not my manuscript. He hadn’t read it. I think, in his mind, he was genuinely trying to be helpful. Yet I assumed his comments were about my manuscript, and that subtle misunderstanding fed the lie I was already believing.
That’s the danger when you’re just starting out on the writing journey. We’re so sensitive in those early days. Our skin is tissue-paper thin. The wrong look from an agent, an offhand comment from an editor, or even a passing remark can completely derail us. It’s so easy to let that kind of discouragement take us out.
Discouragement and rejection are parts of this journey.
If God has called you to write, you have to choose whether or not to believe that call. It took a while for me to understand that it’s not just about the writing. God wanted to do a work in me.
Through moments like this, he taught me not to believe the lie so quickly. Instead, I needed to step back, take time with him, and ask, “Lord, what are you teaching me through this? How are you shaping and molding me? How are you making me more like your Son through this suffering?”
If we take that attitude, the journey becomes so much deeper. It’s no longer about, “I have this dream, and I need to be published because God’s going to publish me.” It becomes about what he’s doing in your heart, spirit, and soul.
Often, the suffering we experience in this industry and in the rest of life is about bringing us deeper healing and making us more whole. God uses those struggles to shape us into who he wants us to become.
Thomas: For many writers, writing is one of the most difficult things they ever do. But it’s that difficulty that makes it such a powerful opportunity for character growth. As the Bible says, “the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” And tests, as we know, are not fun. No student is excited to be tested. No employee says, “I can’t wait for my annual evaluation with my boss.” It’s not something we typically yearn for. But ultimately, it’s what helps us grow and improve our craft and our walk with God.
I truly believe that God is far more interested in our relationship with him during the journey than he is in how many books we sell or the kind of impact our book has. Many Christian books are published every year, and God can use any of them to help people. We each have a unique story, but God is so powerful that he doesn’t need us to move his kingdom forward. He can do that with others or even on his own.
Yet he chooses to use us. And often, he uses the writing process itself to refine our character and draw us closer to him. It’s rarely easy, and I imagine for many people, it can feel quite painful. I know it has been for me. I’ve gone through those seasons, and they are hard, but they are also where some of the deepest growth happens.
So, what happens next in your story?
Jim: After that rejection, I was devastated. My wife kept asking, “What are you doing with your book? Are you working on it?” I kept saying, “No, I’m not.”
Then a friend of mine said, “Jim, I’m going to this writing conference in California. You should come with me.”
I said, “No. I’m not going to that stupid writing conference.”
I mentioned it to Darcy, and she said, “Jim, I think the Lord’s telling you to go to that.”
So, I went. It was Mount Hermon in the spring of 2006, and it was my very first writing conference. When I got there, I felt like I’d come home. I thought, “This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
I had several meetings with editors and agents. Four of the five editors I sat down with said, “Send me the manuscript,” and several agents asked for it as well. But here’s the thing that was a game changer for me at Mount Hermon: you could send in your manuscript ahead of time to be evaluated. I sent mine to an editor and an agent named Steve Laube.
I was supposed to pick up his evaluation on Saturday morning to see if he was interested. I didn’t know anything about Steve at the time. I thought it would just be a simple yes or no. But instead, he took the time to write me a note.
It began, “Dear Jim, you’re a good writer…”
He went on to share things I could improve, what he didn’t like, and ways to make the manuscript stronger. But that one line, “You’re a good writer,” was incredibly encouraging. I thought, “I can write. I’m not just a hack. There’s some talent or ability here.”
Something as simple as that was exactly what I needed to hear. It gave me hope and kept me moving forward.
Thomas: That was your first real encouragement from an industry professional, but you had been actively working on your book for over six years and, up to that point, received nothing but negative feedback. Then, finally, you get a letter that is mostly criticism, yet it includes one key sentence of positive feedback.
What a powerful way to see it. You chose to focus on that one sentence instead of all the corrections that followed. It would have been easy to dwell on the criticism, but choosing to hold on to those opening words made all the difference.
Jim: You know those kids on American Idol back when it was a big deal? The ones who thought they could sing, but everyone else knew they couldn’t? They had completely deceived themselves. That was me. All I wanted was for one of the judges to say, “You’ve got some ability.”
And that’s what Steve Laube gave me. Even though he ultimately rejected the manuscript, that one sentence was incredibly encouraging.
On top of that, several editors and agents at the conference showed real interest in my work. By the time I left Mount Hermon, I was on cloud nine.
I also met Trisha Goyer, who I’m sure many of your listeners are familiar with. Trisha, her husband John, and I became friends. At one point, Trisha said, “Jim, send me your manuscript, and I’ll give you some critique on it.” It was an incredible offer, so I sent her my manuscript.
Not long after, she wrote back and said, “Jim, this is so good. I’m going to recommend you to my agent.”
I couldn’t believe it. Around the same time, another friend in the industry who had just landed an agent said, “I’ll recommend you to my agent as well.” I sent it off, and they loved the manuscript too.
On top of that, I’d made friends with an editor at Mount Hermon, and he said, “I’ll introduce you to my agent.”
That’s why I’m such a big believer in writing conferences. Conferences are not just about meeting editors and agents or landing contracts; they’re about building relationships.
Honestly, I went into Mount Hermon knowing nothing. My only goal was to make friends, build connections, and begin to understand how this industry works. And that’s exactly what happened.
The editor who rejected my manuscript at Mount Hermon later became an agent that summer, and he ended up signing me. That was in the summer of 2006.
He took my first manuscript, Rooms, and shopped it to everyone. The feedback was consistent: “This guy can write, but what the heck do we do with this weird book?” It didn’t fit into any genre, and no one knew how to publish it.
My friends and family were far more upset than I was that no one bought the book. But for me, the question was never about selling it. My real question was, “Can I write? Do I even have the talent to pursue this?” That question had already been answered by Steve, then by my agent, and then by the publishing houses. That was what I needed to hear. With that encouragement, I could move forward.
So, I decided to put that book on the shelf and start writing book number two.
I used to think talent was the key to becoming a novelist. But the truth is, talent is incredibly overrated. What really matters is perseverance.
Thomas: The three things I look for in clients are resonance, hustle, and courage. It’s not merely talent; I value hustle so much more. There’s a saying: “The carpenter doesn’t just build the house; the house builds the carpenter.” By building the house, the carpenter becomes a better carpenter. The same is true for authors. The author doesn’t just build the book; the book builds the author.
Moving on to that second book is a critical step that I think listeners can learn from, and it’s one that many writers don’t take. Too often, they stay stuck on that first book. But the truth is, that first book builds you far more than you build it.
When you move to book number two, you’re starting fresh, but you’re not starting from scratch. You begin the second book with the skills you finished the first one with. In a sense, your ceiling becomes your floor. Where you once fought to get out of the basement with your writing, now your feet are on solid ground. Finally, you can start climbing higher.
That doesn’t mean you’re abandoning book number one forever. But especially for novelists, it’s wise to be willing to set that first book aside and start working on book number two.
Which book was your second?
Jim: Book number two was Book of Days, which ultimately became my second published novel. Interestingly, Rooms ended up being published first. Here’s how that happened:
In the fall of 2007, about a year after all the rejections, I was planning to attend the ACFW conference. One of those earlier rejections came from David Webb, the Executive Director of Fiction at B&H. In his feedback, he essentially said, “I was so impressed by Rubart’s material, I found myself wishing Andy Andrews had written the book.”
What he meant was he couldn’t take a chance on an unknown author. If Andy Andrews or Ted Dekker had written it, he’d publish it in a second. But because I was unproven, he couldn’t take the risk.
However, at the bottom of his email, there was a P.S. that said, “If this book doesn’t sell in six months, bring it back to me.”
As a marketing guy, I saw an opportunity. So, I set up an appointment with David Webb at the next year’s ACFW conference. When I walked into the meeting, I sat down and didn’t even introduce myself. Instead, I smiled and said, “Hello, David, would you mind if I read you an email?”
With a puzzled look, he said, “Sure.”
And then I read his own email back to him.
Thomas: You didn’t assume he’d remember you or the email.
Jim: Correct, but I wanted to make an impression to help him remember who I was. After I’d read the email, he smiled and said, “You’re the one that wrote Rooms. I’ve read 200 manuscripts since I read yours, and yours is the one I can’t get out of my head. Let’s take another shot at it.”
I said, “Sounds good to me.” So, we took another shot at it, took it back to committee, and the book ended up selling.
Thomas: And then it went on to become a bestselling book.
Jim: It did. It became a bestseller, and it won the RT Book Reviews Inspirational Novel of the Year. Everything really took off for me at that point.
Thomas: That’s exciting. And a lot of people see that success and think, “Jim is an overnight success.” But there’s more to the story. You did a lot of hard work to get there. Having that first book be so successful is unusual. Usually, people don’t find their stride until their third or fourth book, especially in fiction. But that grind at the beginning is the same. You have to take the journey.
Jim: I went to the Mount Hermon conference in April of 2006, and that August, I went to a small writing intensive with Cec Murphy. There were eight people, and essentially, Cec just ripped your writing apart. You sent him five pages before the retreat, and he sent back what you needed to work on. I was ready to get that email saying, “Jim, these first five are great. Send me five more.” That did not happen.
Cec absolutely sliced and diced my writing and just tore it up. And he did it again in the next five pages and the next five pages. We were working four hours a day refining, honing, and polishing. After that retreat, I rewrote the entire book. That was hard work. I realized that I needed to learn all these lessons I thought I had learned to a greater degree. I put a tremendous amount of hard work into that book.
Thomas: Cec Murphy is someone you should know if you haven’t heard of him. He’s often considered the “secret brains” behind Christian publishing. Cec has ghostwritten over 100 books and has had a hand in countless others.
Take Rooms, for example. He wasn’t on the cover, and he didn’t ghostwrite it. But he gave you feedback on just a few pages, and that feedback ended up inspiring your entire writing style from that point forward.
In fact, I feel like almost every successful writer in Christian publishing has been impacted by Cec Murphy in some way, whether it was attending a conference he helped sponsor or receiving some encouragement or advice from him. He’s largely retired now, but in many ways, he’s like The Godfather of Christian publishing. His influence is everywhere, even if his name isn’t always front and center.
Jim: I got a contract in the summer of 2008, and in May of 2009, there was a writing conference in Seattle where I served on the board of directors. The conference director sent out an email asking for volunteers to pick up agents and editors arriving at SeaTac airport.
I looked at the list of names, and one of them was the editor who had so brutally rejected me three years earlier. Something in me said, “What are you thinking? You do not want to do that!” But I felt the Spirit whisper, “Jim, you need to face this fear.”
A couple of weeks later, I drove to the airport. I pulled up to the curb, and there he was. I recognized him immediately, but he wouldn’t have known me. He’d seen thousands of proposals and query letters by then.
I parked, stepped out, walked up to him, shook his hand, and said, “How are you?” We put his luggage in the trunk, and he got into the passenger seat. As we started driving, just a couple of minutes in, I realized he was just an insecure little boy, just like me, with his own wounds, fears, hopes, and dreams.
By the time we reached the conference 40 minutes later, we were friends. By the end of the conference two days later, we were fast friends. We exchanged emails and phone numbers, and to this day, we remain great friends. When I tweet something, he always retweets it. When we’re at conferences together, we make time to sit and chat.
After that conference, I decided to take a chance. I told him, “I’ve got a book coming out next year. When I get my advanced reader copies, would you consider reading it and maybe providing an endorsement?”
He said, “Sure, Jim. You bet. Send it to me.”
So, I did. A little while later, he emailed me back and said, “I read the entire book on a 3.5-hour plane flight home from a conference. I absolutely loved it. I’m going to put up a five-star review for you on Amazon.” And he was good to his word.
The point is that back then, the Lord was already doing something in my heart. But three years later, he did something even more powerful with that same man. If I hadn’t stepped into that fear, if I hadn’t kept moving forward, I would have missed out on a friendship and on the chance to realize something deeper.
God does go before us. He is in every moment of suffering, in every circumstance. And more than anything, he wants to use those moments to draw us deeper into himself.
Thomas: Did you ever tell him he sent you that rejection?
Jim: No. I think that could potentially hurt him, and there’s no way I’d ever do that.
Thomas: Part of the story we haven’t touched on is how you and I randomly met at the Austin airport. That chance meeting led to us starting the Novel Marketing Podcast, which has now been running for five years.
I’ve really enjoyed doing that podcast with you, and together we also created a course called The Five-Year Plan to Becoming a Bestselling Author. In that course, we share many of the books you read and reread, along with the hard lessons you learned on your journey. The goal is to make the path a little easier for those coming behind.
Connect with Jim at JamesLRubart.com. Email Jim to receive a song he wrote with his nephew that was inspired by his book Rooms.
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