<a href="http://www.facebook.com/Nobody.JimPalmer" target="_blank">Jim Palmer</a> has always been an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclast" target="_blank">iconoclast</a>. A wildly popular writer of the book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Nobodies-Shedding-Religion-unlikely/dp/0849913985" target="_blank">Divine Nobodies</a></em>, which asked what it meant to shed religion and follow Jesus, Jim emblazoned a new but very old trail and captured the imagination of a restless and growing audience. With his follow up work, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wide-Open-Spaces-Paint-Number/dp/0849913993" target="_blank">Wide Open Spaces</a></em>, Jim continued the the journey he started by asking what it meant to discover and experience God beyond religion.

With the upcoming release of Jim's newest book, <a href="With the upcoming release of Jim's newest book, Being Jesus In Nashville" target="_blank">Being Jesus In Nashville</a>, Jim is now launching into new territory as a writer, a human being, and a self-published author.  In this three part interview, I got to ask Jim some questions about his experience as a writer, his latest book fiasco, and what it means to self-publish outside the system.

[question]You’ve experienced some of the ultimate highs and lows as a writer and as a human being.  Can you share a little about these experiences and what did you learn through that experience?[/question]

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It makes me nervous to be referred to as a “widely acclaimed author.” After writing <em>Divine Nobodies</em> in 2006 I was declared the “next Don Miller,” and following <em>Wide Open Spaces </em>I was dubbed the “next great spiritual writer.” That’s a lot of pressure for a guy who wrote his first two books in his one-car garage, using the hunt and peck method on his decrepit laptop!

I didn’t plan to be an author and wasn’t seeking to be published when a guy at a publishing house began reading my blog and asked if I’d ever thought of writing a book.  One thing led to another and a major publisher took the risk of signing an unknown nobody author like me.  I was so stoked about my new career as a writer that my <em>Divine Nobodies</em> manuscript was 10,000 words over the prescribed word count. Word count, shmord count – I had something to say that humankind needed to hear, however long it was!! I was sure my publisher would agree. Well, not exactly. I remember the morning my editor informed me of all the chapters that would be nixed. Humankind survived somehow… barely.

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[question]Was your next book easier?[/question]

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You’d think with one book under my belt, the next one would be easier. It wasn’t. I didn’t want to be one of those “one-hit-wonders.” I had to live up to <em>Divine Nobodies</em>, which had unusual success as the first book of a largely unknown author… okay, COMPLETELY unknown author. Whereas my first book told my shedding religion story, the follow-up book, <em>Wide Open Spaces</em>, was the story of living into the alternative. Of all the chapters I expected to be problematic, it was the chapter about church that my publisher asked that I re-write.  There was also a lot of attention placed on how I was wording things because they feared it sounded too “universalistic.”

It was during the writing of <em>Wide Open Spaces</em> that I first began feeling hemmed in. I recognized that there might be a battle brewing between my spiritual evolution and what a conservative Christian publishing house would allow. Despite my Masters of Divinity degree, I’m a storyteller, not a theologian, but increasingly I was being asked to clarify my doctrine.

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[question]Did this process affect you?[/question]

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Being an author didn’t line up well with my neurosis, which included wanting everyone to like me, and taking everything personally. I don’t do constructive criticism so well either. I didn’t sleep for two nights after my first negative Amazon review. I wanted to contact him try to explain what he took issue with. I’ve never read another review since then. I don’t want to know.

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[question]What makes you a great writer?[/question]

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I don’t think I’m such a great writer. My first drafts are normally a train wreck, and I do a ton of re-write. I think people probably like my books because they can relate to my kooky humanity. I seem to embolden people to press deeper and permission to be who they are, however messy that might seem to some.

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[question]But your first book did really, really well?[/question]

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It was strange after <em>Wide Open Spaces</em> to have multiple publishers bidding for my next book contract. They were particularly interested upon hearing about my 1-year experiment to be Jesus in Nashville – not Jesus <em>and</em> Jim but Jesus <em>as </em>Jim. I wanted to know how much of Jesus’ life could be pulled off as Jim Palmer. Where did Jesus stop and Jim begin? Or was that just an imaginary line that I created? And if it was an imaginary line, did that mean God and I could be one in the same way as Jesus? The idea had traction, especially if it meant I was going to attempt to heal people or try other Jesus-esque miracles or do something radial like live among the homeless in order to serve the “least of these.”

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[question]And you published with Zondervan.[/question]

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Ultimately I signed with Zondervan Publishing because they expressed strong interest in connecting with a reading audience beyond the typical mainstream Christian crowd. My tribe, who has shared this journey with me the last several years, are ordinary people, mostly from a Christian background, who have been shedding religion and no longer support the view of Jesus and Christian living promoted by the institutional church. Many in my tribe follow Jesus but do not subscribe to organized Christianity.

I signed that contract with Zondervan in August of 2008. It was a 2-book deal; the first book, <em>Being Jesus in Nashville</em>. I could have never predicted what transpired in living and writing this book. The deaths of my mother and close friend were devastating. Shortly after, I had two near-death experiences of my own. To this day, I don’t know how I managed to have survived either one of them.

Despite the heartache and turmoil of these and other experiences, I turned in my manuscript to Zondervan Publishing on February 21, 2011. Though they undergone considerable turnover, I had worked with 3 different managing editors, I had never received any indication that there was a problem with my manuscript. But on March 29<sup>th</sup> I received an email from Zondervan claiming that my book, similar to the firestorm of heresy charges leveled against Bell, did not “lie within the bounds of biblical, orthodox Christianity.” Zondervan rejected my manuscript and then informed me they were canceling my contract, to which I had no recourse because of a no-arbitration clause in the contract.

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[question]That must have been devastating.[/question]

[answer]

Having only received an initial advance when I signed the contract in 2008, I was eager to be paid my next installment. As a self-employed author, it was customary for me to live on credit and pay off my balance each time I received my next book payment. I had done almost three years of writing without getting paid and I desperately needed that next check to straighten out my financial obligations. In addition to not being paid, Zondervan demanded I pay back the advance I received in 2008. The combination of all of that meant I lost $80,000 one flail swoop. It was too much to absorb. I either faced eviction and becoming homeless, or file bankruptcy.

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[question]How did you respond?[/question]

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Honestly, if it was just me I might have opted to become homeless or sleep on a friend’s couch for an extended period of time. But it wasn’t just me; I have a 12-year-old daughter. There are several things I just figured would never happen in my life. Filing bankruptcy was one of them. Once I dealt with my personal feelings of failure about it, I became more aware and compassionate for those in financial crisis. I discovered a side of humanity that I had not known before in bankruptcy court as I sat and heard the stories of those who went before us.

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[question]In other words, you lived some of the same suffering as Jesus.[/question]

[answer]

The whole ordeal of losing my book contract and filing bankruptcy forced me to confront a story about myself that I’ve been carrying since childhood that I’m a failure. I’m not out of the woods on that one yet; some stories die hard. Surviving my two near-death experiences was transformational, which I write about in the book. There was a Jim Palmer who died in that car, and someone different who was pulled out alive.

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In part 2, we'll allow Jim to unpack his writing experience with Zondervan a little more and why his book was rejected.  Stay tuned.