Christian publishers in 2026: traditional houses vs pay-to-publish, and how to tell them apart

A Christian publishing house either pays you or charges you. A traditional house buys the right to publish your book and pays you an advance, royalties or both. A pay-to-publish press sells you editing, design, printing and distribution as a package. Five questions put any Christian publishing company in one camp or the other.

1. Who pays whom? A traditional house never sends you an invoice. If the first number you see is a package price, you are buying a service.
2. Do they turn manuscripts down? Tyndale says it publishes "less than one percent" of the unsolicited manuscripts it receives. Ask any press how many books it declined last year.
3. Who holds the rights, and for how long? Find the clause that hands the rights back. The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) says "A clear rights-reversion clause must be included in every contract."
4. How are royalties calculated? Ask whether the percentage is of list price or of "net", and net of what. IBPA says a hybrid author's royalty "should be greater than 50% of net on both print and digital books."
5. Where is the book sold? A listing on Amazon is not a bookstore order. Ask which stores stocked the press's books last year, and who sold them in.

IBPA lists 11 criteria for a hybrid publisher, expanded from nine in 2022. The full test, with all 11, is on vanity press vs hybrid publisher.

The list below covers 13 top Christian publishers and imprints, each checked on its own submission page on 18 October 2026 (Thomas Nelson and Moody on 19 October). Nine want an agent, an editor's invitation or a meeting at a writers' conference, or are closed to new submissions. Three take trade proposals directly: Crossway, Eerdmans and Deseret Book. Zondervan takes academic proposals only.

Most Christian book publishers lists online link each house's home page and repeat old policies. This list of Christian publishers links the submission page itself and quotes it, so you can check the wording before you send anything.

For LDS publishers, one portal handles three imprints. Deseret Book's page names Deseret Book and Shadow Mountain, and Covenant's site says its submissions "are reviewed through Deseret Book's manuscript portal." Allow 16 weeks: Deseret asks you to "allow up to sixteen weeks for us to review and respond."

Memoir and devotional writers should read the exclusions before anything else. Crossway turns away "Personal-experience stories". Deseret Book does not want "Family histories, memoirs, autobiographies" or "Journals, workbooks, daily devotionals, poetry". Zondervan's open channel names devotionals among what it will not take. For those books the routes are an agent, a Catholic house (Word on Fire's Luminor imprint takes memoirs; see Catholic book publishers), or self-publishing. If yours is a devotional, how to write a devotional covers the format houses and readers expect.

Devotional writers have one more door. Christian Art Publishers, the book arm of Christian Art Gifts, wants "devotionals, prayer books, seasonal books, and kids' resources" through an online form and is "not looking for fiction". Its site says it will then "discuss our publishing options"; it does not set out its terms, so ask who pays before you sign.

Christian book publishing services are sold by presses that charge the author. Of the presses below, only WestBow Press published package prices on 18 October 2026: $2,699 to $8,299. Redemption Press prices its services one by one; the others quote on request or show figures only in their contracts. Royalty terms vary widely, so the table quotes each press's own.

Each row answers the first of the five questions: the author pays. The other four are for you to put to the press, and the full version of the test is on vanity press vs hybrid publisher.

Where a press publishes no prices, its contract may. Christian Faith Publishing and Covenant Books post the same agreement template online, with two payment plans: "$595 upon execution of this Agreement followed by ten (10) monthly payments of $349 each", or $995 down and fourteen payments of $399. That is $4,085 or $6,581 in all: payment plans in a contract, not published list prices. Covenant Books says it is "based in Murrell's Inlet, South Carolina"; its footer gives 830 Park Avenue, Meadville, Pennsylvania, and Christian Faith Publishing's gives 832 Park Avenue in the same town.

Two different companies answer to "Covenant publishing company". Covenant Books, in the table above, calls itself "Covenant Publishing" in its own FAQ. Covenant, a Latter-day Saint imprint that "continues under the stewardship of Deseret Book", takes manuscripts through Deseret Book's portal, listed with the traditional houses.

Salem Author Services, which older lists still name, had no working website when checked on 18 October 2026. Xulon Press's own site names no parent company. Ambassador International also appears on such lists, but its own site describes it as "a Christian publisher and the primary trade imprint of Emerald House Group" that offers "royalty-based publishing contracts on those works we decide to advance." Its pages mention no author fees, so it is not in the table. Its electronic form was open on 18 October 2026: "We are now accepting submissions for our 2027-2028 catalogues."

Christian publishers accepting submissions without an agent are few. On 18 October 2026 they were Crossway, Eerdmans and Deseret Book among the evangelical and LDS houses, plus the academic lines at Zondervan, Baker and Brazos. Catholic houses are more open: of the 16 we could read, 13 take a proposal or query without an agent.

For other Christian publishing companies accepting submissions, the current list is The Christian Writers Market Guide 2026, compiled by Steve Laube and published by the Christian Writers Institute on 16 December 2025. It holds "more than 1,000 updated entries about publishers, agents, editors, and other industry professionals", and its online edition costs "$14.99 per year". Its own site warns that "many houses accept manuscripts only from agents or through meeting with their editors at a writers conference."

An agent is the main route into the rest. The Steve Laube Agency, run by the guide's compiler, says "many publishers will not accept a submission unless it is agented." Asked whether it charges reading fees, it answers: "No, not for any reason." Hold any agent to that standard.

One older route has closed. ChristianBookProposals.com, the proposal database run by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, "was closed to new accounts and purchases" on 10 November 2025, according to its own notice as archived in July 2026.

Writers' conferences are the second route. Kregel, David C Cook and Baker each name conferences on their submission pages as the place their editors meet new authors.

Where to send a proposal without an agent

Five doors were open on 18 October 2026, each with its own rules and wait.

• Crossway: the online form, for non-fiction that is "thoroughly evangelical Christian in its perspective". If you hear nothing "within eight weeks", the answer is no, and the house asks you not to follow up.
• Eerdmans: email to [email protected], with "Book Proposal" at the start of the subject line. It aims to reply "within eight weeks of receipt" and gives no detailed comments on books it declines.
• Deseret Book: the QueryManager portal, with a query letter, author information and the whole manuscript, even though the portal asks for 50 pages. Mailed and emailed manuscripts are discarded. Allow 16 weeks.
• Zondervan Academic: email to [email protected], with the imprint in the subject line, for textbooks, reference works and scholarly monographs only. It replies within six weeks if interested.
• Baker Academic and Brazos Press: the only Baker Publishing Group imprints exempt from the agent rule.

Whichever route you take, the house will ask for a proposal before it reads a manuscript. Zondervan Academic asks for five things in "no more than five pages": a description, the book's unique contribution, a table of contents with "a two or three sentence description of each chapter", the intended reader, and your qualifications. Eerdmans asks for much the same, plus one or two sample chapters and whether you are submitting elsewhere at the same time. Christian book editing and proposals walks through each section.

Most companies sold as Christian self-publishing companies are the pay-to-publish presses above. The cheaper route is to publish on Amazon KDP yourself and pay a faith-literate editor directly. KDP says it lets you "self-publish eBooks, paperbacks, and hardcover books for free"; it "subtracts your printing costs from your royalties." A developmental edit of an 80,000-word non-fiction book costs $3,200–4,000 at the Editorial Freelancers Association's 2026 median rates.

That 80,000-word figure is close to a typical faith book. The 17 spiritual titles in The Anatomy of a Bestseller (47 books; 46 measured, the Bhagavad-gita being unscoreable) have a median of 80,712 words over 16 chapters. The study's middle half runs from 60,110 to 102,142 words, so ask any editor to quote for your exact count. How to write a Christian book sets out what else those books share.

The self-publishing route has four paid parts: an edit, a cover, interior formatting and, if you want one, your own ISBN. What it costs to publish a book prices each one with sources. Christian book editing covers where to find an editor who knows scripture citation and your tradition's vocabulary.

A package still suits some authors. If you would rather pay one company than hire four freelancers, it buys convenience. Compare its price line by line with the freelance costs first, and read the contract's rights and royalty clauses against the five questions above. The best self-publishing companies compares the general-market firms on the same terms.

To see what one outside read of a faith manuscript looks like, the sample report on The Pilgrim's Progress shows a chapter-by-chapter summary, recommendations, word counts and reading-ease scores.

Few Christian fiction publishers take unagented novels. Of the houses checked for this page, Bethany House publishes fiction but takes it only through agents. Kregel lists fiction and takes proposals only through agents or at conferences. Crossway, Zondervan's open channel, Ave Maria Press and Our Sunday Visitor all exclude adult fiction in writing.

Two religious fiction publishers take novels directly. Covenant, Deseret Book's LDS imprint, publishes "novels, devotionals, and gospel-centered stories" through Deseret's portal, though Deseret excludes "Fantasy and science fiction". Word on Fire's Luminor imprint, a Catholic list, takes "fiction, poetry, and other literary works for adult readers" through an open proposal form. For Christian novel publishers beyond these, the agent route in the section above applies.