In November, I announced that I’ve signed a contract to publish a new book titled The Unintentional Interim. It’s my Church Book, the one where I finally write about pastoral ministry to congregations. Specifically, it will be about pastors who learn shortly after arriving that they’ll need to navigate some form of transition that the church hasn’t resolved yet.
I’ve never been able to provide an update to the process this soon. In every prior instance, I wrote the bare minimum sample chapter or two that publishers require and then did the rest after acceptance. But this time, I felt moved to write the entire draft manuscript prior to pitching it.
Doing so meant that, after The Pilgrim Press accepted the proposal, they wouldn’t have to wait around for me to finish the draft. Instead, we could move right to the editing stage.
For Pilgrim, their editing takes place in two parts. First come the developmental edits, where I receive suggestions and notes about the content to make it as strong as possible. These include notes to flesh out ideas a bit more, cut material that seems repetitive, and so on. After that come the line edits, where we catch all the typos (hopefully) and fix grammatical issues.
Every other publisher I’ve worked with has combined these two parts, presenting them all at once. Different strokes and all that.
Anyway. I just finished the developmental edit stage. It was relatively painless, and the editor I worked with was fantastic. And basically, I was excited enough about completing them that I wanted to tell you all.
Next up will come line edits. This may take a few months because my manuscript needs to wait in line right now, about which I am unbothered.
So that’s where The Unintentional Interim is at the moment. Stay tuned for more, possibly in the spring.
Jeffrey A. Nelson 