His
path to becoming a literary agent was both surprising and inevitable. David
describes himself as a late bloomer, languishing in the lower echelons of his
literary courses through school, and not becoming much of a reader until he was
nearly thirty. But publishing is in David’s blood, it seems: his father, John
Van Diest was the original publisher at Multnomah Press and is now associate
publisher of Tyndale; both sisters worked in publishing; Don Jacobson, his
brother-in-law, was publisher/owner of Multnomah Publishers for nearly 20 years;
David’s wife, Sarah, has been a literary agent for a number of authors; and
even his wife’s brother, Jeff Gerke, is an author and publisher.
Since
starting in publishing in 1988 David has worked directly with many leading
Christian publishers, ministries, and bestselling authors Max Lucado, Karen
Kingsbury, and Chuck Swindoll. He’s worn a variety of hats in the past 20+
years, including marketing director, vice president of sales and literary
agent. While in marketing at Multnomah, David wrote the marketing plan for a
little book called The Prayer of Jabez, which surprised everyone by selling
over 10 million copies.
Today,
David continues in the publishing industry because of his passion to help
everyone understand the un-surpassing greatness of God’s love expressed through
His Son Jesus’ free gift of grace, and to help Christians mature in Him through
continued growth.
Note from Edie: Hey everyone, I'm super excited to have David as a contributor on my blog. He's not only knowledgeable about the industry and the craft of writing, he's also my agent! So make him feel welcome.
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5 Misperceptions about Writing a Proposal
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For nearly all authors, writing a proposal is worse than
any other task imaginable. |
For most authors, writing a
proposal is a necessary but unappealing task.
Please forgive me, I may
have understated this, so let me start again.
For nearly every author,
writing a proposal is worse than any other task imaginable. Most would rather
take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, wash the dog, mow the lawn, scratch
your eyeballs… and the list goes on. In fact, when faced with the idea of
writing a proposal many will do all these things first in an effort to avoid the
monumental task.