Why it took 18 years to publish my book

By Susan Barnes

On 19 June 2007, I posted a blog post (here). The post contained five statements about Jesus. These five statements became ten, and eventually became the ten chapters in my book, 10 Blessings of God. (The book was originally called 10 Things I Love About God.) I probably finished the first draft of the book later that year, that is in 2007, 18 years ago. 

Why did it take me so long to publish? 

1st Reason – I actually didn’t want to write a book

Most authors write the types of books they would like to read. When I came to faith as a teenager, I knew very little about being a Christian as I didn’t come from a churched home. I began reading Christian Living books. I’m an avid reader, so I read lots and lots of them. 

After a while, I realised that 99% of these books were written by American males who were university graduates. Often, they pastored large churches and were well-known. 

Given that I was none of these things and never likely to be, I felt writing and publishing a book wasn’t a viable option for me. I also realised that many of these authors were involved in their own marketing and doing a lot of public speaking, which wasn’t appealing either.

Two years before the blog post, that is, in 2005, we had moved to Gisborne. We were going on long service leave in a couple of months, so there was no point in me looking for a job or getting overly involved in our new church. Our older children had already left home, and our youngest was 18 and didn’t move with us. I had recently finished a Diploma in Library and Information Services, and I wasn’t planning to do any more study. I literally had nothing to do. 

So I prayed about what God wanted me to do and the idea of writing a book came to mind but I kept dismissing it. After a while, I thought perhaps this idea was from God. So I proceeded to tell God why it was a very bad idea! “I’m an Australian female. I’m unknown. The Australian Christian publishing industry is tiny.” I also told God that I didn’t have anything to write about.

Suddenly, I was reminded that over the previous ten years, I had written fortnightly and sometimes weekly devotions. I knew that I wrote on particular themes, like love, grace, peace, hope. So I printed off my devotions and put them into piles according to their topic. From these ideas, I wrote a chapter about each topic. Three months later, I had a book-length manuscript. Something I had thought impossible.

After this process, I had so many devotions left over that two years later, I wrote a second book, which became 10 Blessings of God. I still have the original manuscript on my computer, and maybe I’ll publish that next year.

Once I had a manuscript, I started looking at publishing options. 

2nd Reason – I discovered I wasn’t a good writer

Perhaps this should have been obvious to me as I was only an average English student. Generally, my essays scored Cs. I was actually much better at Maths.

I began showing my book to editors. I remember one editor saying to me, about what I thought was a particularly clever sentence, “That’s the most awkward sentence I’ve ever read!” 

About this time. a literary agent did show some interest but told me my book required too much editing.

However, the most disturbing thing I was told about my writing was that I was quoting too many other people. I was hiding behind other people’s experiences instead of sharing my own. 

In retrospect, I wonder why I kept writing. But it was partly because I knew that people had been blessed by the devotions I had written. And also, because I discovered I liked hanging around the Christian authors I met at the Omega Writers events. I found like-minded people and I felt a bond with them. 

I heard a conference speaker once say, you can learn to be a better writer, but if your content isn’t very good, that’s a much harder problem to solve, so there was hope.

It took a lot of time and work to improve my writing. It wasn’t easy because there aren’t courses or workshops you can take for learning how to write a Christian Living book. 

The other issue of being able to write about my own experiences, instead of borrowing from other people's, also took a lot of time and energy. I had to work through some emotional issues to get to that place.

3rd Reason – I really didn’t want to self-publish 

I was around when self-publishing became a ‘thing’, and it wasn’t good. A lot of poor-quality books flooded the market, and I didn’t want to be part of that. So I persisted for over a decade to get traditionally published. 

During this time, through a series of unexpected events, I went back to study and completed a bachelor's degree in Christian ministry. Later, I completed a Graduate Certificate in Writing through Tabor College. 

Also, during this time, there was a five-year period where I was an interim pastor at three different churches. I preached my way through, 10 Blessings of God, a couple of times. So I felt it was worthwhile writing it, even if it never got published. 

I continued attending conferences, meeting agents, editors and publishers. I wrote book proposals and cover letters. Mostly, I was writing to Americans, so I had my book edited into US English, which makes me feel like a bit of a traitor! However, since 2005, when I started a blog, I’ve always had a lot more visits from Americans than Australians. 

In 2020, at an Omega Christian Writers Conference, my book, won the prize for the best unpublished manuscript, but it wasn’t enough to convince me that my book was good enough to self-publish.

In 2022, I spoke to an acquisition editor from England at another Omega Writers Conference who was genuinely interested in publishing my book. We corresponded for the next couple of months, but in the end, the editorial board decided my book wasn’t financially viable. 

Nevertheless, the fact that a completely objective, unbiased person wanted to publish my book made me realise that my book was, at long last, good enough to be published.

However, by now, we had moved back to Bendigo, and I had been fortunate to pick up a school librarian position. And while it was a good job and I felt blessed to have it, the position was taxing, both physically and mentally. I quickly realised that I would have to wait until I retired to publish my book. 

In February of this year, I retired, and now, finally, I have a published book. It’s published under my business name, Reams of Grace. 

Author Bio

Susan Barnes has thirty years of experience in pastoral ministry, serving in various roles at different churches where her husband, Ross, was the pastor. Since earning a degree in Christian ministry, Susan has served as a chaplain and an interim pastor at rural churches in Vic and NSW. Books have always been an important part of her life, and she worked for many years in public and school libraries. 

Susan has published hundreds of devotional articles where she shares her experiences of trusting God. She lives with her husband in central Victoria, Australia. 

 www.susanbarneswriter.com