I let two months pass before I gathered my resolve and resumed seeking a publisher for Anything Worth Doing. I started as small as I possibly could: I called a tiny publisher named Backeddy Books, based in Cambridge (that’s Idaho, not Massachussetts.) Nobody answered. Nobody replied to my message. I didn’t call back. The exercise had served its purpose: I was ready to go to work.

On principle I emailed Stackpole, a midsize regional which publishes outdoor titles and which, I had been told, was New York Times bestselling author Ted Kerasote’s first publisher. Ted writes smart, original books on outdoor themes.

Then I combed my proposal yet again.

Then finally I did what I’d known I would all along: I called Colorado-based Johnsonbooks. You might remember that Johnsonbooks offered on the original cougar book. A larger publisher would have been a smarter financial bet, but this small regional publisher of books I respected was where I’d always intended to go if I couldn’t land a New York house.

It turned out that publisher Mira Perrizo not only remembered me, she remembered wanting to publish the cougar book. She remembered seeing that book when it came out. She remembered thinking Johnsonbooks would have done it better.

Yes, send the query.

Yahoo! I emailed it.

That same afternoon she replied. Send the proposal.

The next day she replied again. If I didn’t mind a very small advance, possibly no advance at all, send the manuscript.

I told Mira I didn’t care about money with this project anymore. I cared about publishing a good book. Would she help me do that? Yes, she said. I could count on that.

Silence. It was a happy silence for me: I had regretted not choosing Johnsonbooks for the cougar book. The house’s authors included firebrand Edward Abbey, well-known natural history writer David Quammen, and Harley Shaw, author of the most compassionate, honest cougar book I’ve ever read. I was positive Mira was going to offer on my book, and that together we’d publish a book I could promote with pride.

Three weeks passed. I emailed: Had she read the manuscript? No, she wrote back. But feel free to pester her. I shoved aside my own truism about good news from editors coming fast and bad news slow, chose not to move ahead and submit elsewhere, and waited.

Three more weeks. I emailed again. Had she read the manuscript? Yes, she said. And she liked it. But.

But. Johnsonbooks would pass.

What the hell?