[3] While he was sick with strep throat as a child, Butcher's sisters introduced him to The Lord of the Rings and The Han Solo Adventures novels to pass the time, beginning his fascination with fantasy and science fiction.

After meeting Butcher in person, Ricia Mainhardt, the agent who discovered Laurell K. Hamilton, agreed to represent him, which kick-started his writing career.

In addition, he contributed a short story for publication in My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding with Charlaine Harris and Sherrilyn Kenyon, among others, released in October 2006.

[8] Six months after Butcher was signed by Mainhardt, Storm Front, the first novel in The Dresden Files, was picked up by Roc/Penguin Books for publishing.

[11] A ninth book from Roc, White Night, was released on April 3, 2007, shortly after the paperback edition for Proven Guilty in February.

The series garners a strong following and is now available in several languages, including Spanish, Dutch, French, Czech, Polish, German and Mandarin Chinese.

[citation needed] After the success of the beginning of Dresden, Butcher returned to the traditional fantasy genre with his second series, Codex Alera.

The series chronicles the life of a young man named Tavi from the Calderon Valley of Alera on the world of Carna.

[17] On March 3, 2003, Jim Butcher announced that Ace won a bidding war against rival publisher Del Rey Books for the rights to the series.

[18] The first novel in the series, Furies of Calderon, was published in hardcover by Ace, and in August 2004, major booksellers began taking pre-orders for an October 5, 2004 release.

Furies of Calderon was the first hardcover release for Butcher,[19] and was a significant step forward in making the transition from a part-time to a full-time writer.

[22] The sixth and final novel, First Lord's Fury, was released on November 24, 2009, and has reached #7 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

[8] On March 4, 2013, Publishers Weekly revealed that Butcher had closed a deal with the Penguin Group for the first three books of a steampunk-inspired series called The Cinder Spires.

The Grave Peril audiobook shipped as an unabridged 10-CD set on October 28, 2004, with a free T-shirt bundled with all purchases before December 26, 2004.

[9] On October 5, 2005, Variety reported that the television project had been officially greenlit by Sci Fi, with Hans Beimler and Robert Wolfe coming on board as executive producers with Cage, Golightly, and Gendel.

[29] In May 2006, Sci Fi announced an initial purchase of eleven episodes of The Dresden Files and a January 2007 premiere of the two-hour pilot movie.