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Photo courtesy of Jami Amerine
That is not a misprint. It is a an increase of 689,931 views. And it all happened thanks to one entry titled, “An Open Letter to My Children: You’re Not That Great.” A friend shared it on Facebook and it went viral, to the tune of 690,000 viewers.
By October 2015, that number had jumped to 1 million and today, Jami has 1.5 million faithful fans. She credits the catchy title for catching people’s attention.
“I think if I was given a superpower, it was naming things,” she said.
You can name Jami “successful.” Those impressive numbers led to landing an agent and getting a two-book contract with Harvest House, a Christian publishing house in Eugene, Oregon.
The first book, Stolen Jesus: An Unconventional Search for the Real Savior, was published in October 2017 and the next, Sacred Ground, Sticky Floors: How Less-Than-Perfect Parents Can Raise Kids Who are (Kind of) Great, is scheduled for release in October 2018.
Those first two books led to a contract for a third, Sacred Temple, Lumpy Thighs, that Jami is working on now. One thing Jami has going for her, besides a talent for catchy titles, is plenty of material to work with, both from a spiritual perspective and a wife/mother perspective.
Her dad’s career caused the family to move a lot while she was growing up. They settled in Abilene and Jami graduated from Wylie High School and then ACU in 1996. Her parents moved to Houston and Jami and the rest of her family moved there, too, in 2017 from a large ranch near Merkel.
The “rest of her family” is a story in itself. Jami’s husband, Justin, grew up near Merkel and graduated from Angelo State University. His father owned a heating and air conditioning company, and Justin expanded it statewide, making it easy for the family to relocate to Houston.
The move also put the family closer to her parents and closer to a major airport, a necessity with all the speaking engagements Jami has attracted.
Jami and Justin are parents of four biological children and two adopted sons, ages 6 and 4. Over the years, they have been foster parents to several children and most likely will be again.
Jami’s religious background is as diversified as her family. Her family was Mormon until Jami was 7 and then they joined an Assemblies of God congregation. Jami later was baptized in the Disciples of Christ denomination. She married a Catholic and then joined Highland Church of Christ while living in Abilene.
They currently are searching for a church home in Houston. That background led to the title of her book, Stolen Jesus. A promotional blurb explains:
“Let’s be honest. The journey to discovering Jesus – Real Jesus – can be complicated, messy, and a little crazy. Just ask Jami Amerine. Banned from the Mormon church as a child, she’s spent the rest of her life trying to reconcile Fifth-Grade Jesus, Catholic Jesus and Americanized Jesus (just to name a few).”
Jami was as surprised as anyone over the success of her writing career, which she didn’t see coming. She never had an urge to write and just started her blog on a whim, squeezing in a few minutes here and there to type it on her phone.
But her parents saw something in her writing and agreed to send her to a conference for writers of Christian materials.
“I didn’t know I even had that in me,” she said.
But an agent she met at the conference knew it when she saw the blog numbers Jami was hitting. Now, she has a book endorsement from TV host Kathie Lee Gifford, two completed books and one in the works, numerous speaking engagements, and acclaim that astounds her.
“It was completely organic,” she said, just seeming to come out of nowhere.
But a quick read of her blog posts shows that she has the knack. Her blog has the same name as her upcoming book, “Sacred Ground, Sticky Floors.” The title and the closing sentence in the “about” section tell readers immediately that Jami has a superpower for naming things and a gift for getting her thoughts across.
“May your floors be sticky and your calling ordained! Love, Jami.”