An Update on My Publishing Pipeline
Some major developments on forthcoming books.
Longtime readers know that I subscribe to the principle of the ‘writing pipeline,’ meaning that I always have at least two substantial writing projects going at a given time. The main reason for this is that the publishing process entails a ton of waiting, especially in the second half of publishing a book.
You wait for readers’ reports on the manuscript. You wait for the press to get back to you on the latest round of edits. You wait to get page proofs. Finally, you wait to get copies of the published book. The waiting on a book always amounts to months of time, if not years.
What do you do while you’re waiting? My answer is “work on another book.” Or an article, or whatever, but it should be a substantial next project. Obviously my job provides more time (and expectations) for writing than for the average writer, but the point still remains: if you publish something, you’re going to do a lot of waiting. Good stewardship suggests that you fill the down time with the early stages of another project.
Currently I have three book projects at various stages of completion, plus a second edition of my American History textbook. This is probably more than I would ideally have going on, but delays in a couple of the projects have added even more waiting than usual, so I was ready to move on to a third project.
This project, the one at the earliest stage, is a biography of Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson, co-authored with my friend and Midwestern Seminary colleague Jason Duesing. We are about halfway through writing that manuscript. It is due to Crossway in mid-2026.
The next book is The Second Great Awakening and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism, due out with Yale University Press in early 2027. This book recently got final approval from the Yale Press board! I am hopeful that this will become the standard book on the Second Great Awakening of the early 1800s. It also serves as a sort of companion volume to my earlier Yale Press book on the First Great Awakening.
Finally, there is The Death of Religion? Nones, Others, and The Flourishing of Faith which is due out with B&H Academic in mid-2026. I am co-authoring this book with my friend and Baylor colleague Byron Johnson. Byron co-directs the extraordinary Global Flourishing Study, a $43 million global survey of what makes people flourish. First wave data from the study recently received major attention from most national media outlets.
We use data from the study in the book, which focuses on the question of religion and Christianity’s relative health in America and around the world (spoiler alert: it’s doing fine, contrary to the near-universal media predictions of doom).
I offer this review of my forthcoming books partly by way of update to my subscribers (THANK YOU for your support). But we’re also entering the summer, which is often “prime time” for writers to get work done.
Do you have two identifiable projects in your pipeline? Even if these are smaller projects (say an article and a book review), having two can provide a ready answer for what to do while you “wait” in the publishing process.
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