Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Most of these publishers are traditional publishers, but I do have a few on this
page that are hybrid publishers (half self-publishing and half traditional
publishing) and also some that are self-publishers.
1. Zondervan
Zondervan is the gold standard of Christian
publishing. They’re the best known and have been around for a long time (80
years!). If you’re looking for the highest quality, I would start here. They are a
branch of Harper Collins, which gives you the power of one of the biggest
publishing houses behind you.
If you want me to namedrop a little bit, they’ve published Rick Warren, Rob
Bell, and Hal Lindsey.
2. Baker Books
Baker only accepts submissions directly from agents, but they do accept slush
pile submissions through this portal:
www.christianmanuscriptsubmissions.com
Their editors visit that portal when they are looking for certain types of
manuscripts, and if your manuscript is chosen — well, lucky you.
3. Intervarsity Press
They do like anything to do with spiritual formation, as you’ll see from the
examples below, and social issues and social justice.
These are some of the titles published by Intervarsity:
They are looking for social issues through a Christian worldview, spirituality,
devotions, and they also have an academic branch.
They have a wonderful imprint called “Flyaway Books” that focuses on
children’s books.
Not all of the children’s books are expressly religious, but all of them have
positive messages and issues that children deal with.
One important note for submitters: they like creative retellings of Bible
stories.
5. Kregel Publications
Also, they just started up a very cool new imprint which I hope has fantastic
success — it’s called Enclave Press, and it’s focused on Christian Sci-Fi and
Fantasy.
6. Beaming Books
With a tagline like “Helping
Kids Thrive,” you can probably guess that this is a Christian publisher of
children’s books (They used to be called “Sparkhouse Family” and have
recently changed their name).
As you can tell, they tend toward nonfiction titles with strong lessons and
information for children.
7. Herald Press
Herald Press is a Mennonite publisher and they are
looking for books that are from an Anabaptist perspective.
Note well: they are not looking for any academic titles.
Sample Titles:
8. Eerdman’s Publishing
This is a pretty broad Christian publishing house based in Grand Rapids
Michigan.
They are looking for children’s books, culture and religion, pastoral care and
counseling, and contemporary spirituality.
Sample titles:
God, Improv and the Art of Living (with a forward by my friend Susan
E. Isaacs)
The Holy No: Worship as a Subversive Act
Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump
They are looking for authentic, sensory-based devotionals that explore what it
means to be a faithful Christian.
Lenten/Advent books
Small Group Study Guides
Their Slant Imprint publishes fiction, but they only have a few titles right now.
However, they told me that they are eager to expand their fiction offerings, so
check out what they’ve published before and submit while they are in need.
Thankfully, they have only one submission portal, and the editors will decide
which imprint your book might be right for.
11. Moody Publishers
Moody has a great reputation in the
Christian community, mainly because of their reputation for the Moody Study
Bible and Moody Bible Institute (even I took a correspondence course in
Biblical Hebrew from them eons ago). But does their publishing branch match
up to their reputation in other ventures?
They do have a good pedigree, since they were founded in 1894, and they do
have good name brand recognition among the people you want to buy
your books. They also have a good stable of authors like John MacArthur,
A.W. Tozer and Gary Chapman.
Overall, I would rate this as a pretty great publisher to go with. Not my first
choice among the ones on this page, but among the top. A bonus is that they
accept a huge variety of nonfiction and fiction. For their fiction categories,
they accept the following: Children, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, YA (Young Adult), and
Mystery.
The worst thing about Moody is that they’re not very friendly to submitters.
You just can’t send them your manuscript, because they accept no slush pile.
Instead, these are the three ways to get a manuscript to them:
Through a literary agent
Through an author they publish (a personal connection)
From meeting them at a writers conference
Sample Titles:
They publish fiction and nonfiction, and they do not provide advances.
They say that they’re looking for authors with some kind of social media
platform, and also for books that will do well in the Christian market. They
say that some books can take as long as 12 months to publish, but the majority
require 4 – 6 months for publication (12 months would be a normal time
frame, while 4 – 6 months is extremely quick in the industry).
More Than a Great Partner: How to Find and Keep the Right
Mate. A great self-help book helping unmarried people to find the right
partner and married people to stay married.
The Regency. In this high-octane thriller, an assailant kills a
Washington D.C. pastor and then pursues a young woman.
13. Bethany House
About half of their titles are paperbacks, and the others are published only
as ebooks — which is important if you absolutely need your book in print.
Some Christian book publishers have the bad reputation of only
publishing bonnet fiction, and that’s not Bethany House at all; most of their
fiction doesn’t mention overt religious themes in the descriptions at all,
although the Christian undertones are present in the book. But The Atonement
by Beverly Lewis does have the traditional Amish garb on the cover:
Sample Titles:
14. Crosslink Publishing
Crosslink Publishing makes it very easy to submit a manuscript to them.
There’s a button on the upper left hand corner of their website which lets you
submit directly to them, which sure beats waiting for an agent to accept your
manuscript. They also are very open about the type of contract you would get,
publishing a sample author contract on their website.
They sell their books at a pretty low price point
— Confessions of a Ninja Mom on Amazon was selling for $4.84, which
means your royalties would be lower by a third than if you were selling at
$15.00 for a paperback. Awaken Your Might, a Christ-centered devotional
aimed to improve your leadership skills, is priced at $3.99 (!!). These are good
price points if you are a reader, but not such good price points for an author
trying to earn money. But obviously their business model is more about
selling tons of copies at a lower price point, so if that’s what you want as an
author, go for it.
This manifesto lets you know a little bit more about their philosophy of
publishing, including a commitment to absolute transparency and that authors
should get a decision on their book within 7 days (a record in the industry!).
Make sure to read the comments at the bottom of this post to see about the
experiences of other authors with this publisher.
Overall, I think this is a better choice for nonfiction
than it is for fiction. I didn’t find very many fiction titles that they’ve
published, and had a hard time figuring out the pitch for the novels they do
have.
Sample Titles:
15. Thomas Nelson
Sample Titles:
16. Faithwords
So they’re hitting a much broader market for Christian books than more
conservative, evangelical publishing houses like Thomas Nelson and
Zondervan. It’s more like self-help combined with a light Christian veneer.
Sample Titles:
17. Paraclete Press
Paraclete is a Christian publisher looking for
fiction, a wide variety of nonfiction, and poetry. But they don’t take children’s
books, sermons, or commentaries.
Their submissions page is a little bit hard to find on the website, but here are
their submissions guidelines for what they’re looking for.
“Be Still and Listen,” which is a nonfiction title that probably fits under
devotional/spiritual living
“Unveiling,” which is a novel by Suzanne M. Wolfe, and here is the
description: “Rachel Piers, a brilliant young conservatrice at a Manhattan art
gallery, is given the dream assignment of restoring a mysterious medieval
painting in a church in Rome.”