Catholic book publishers: who publishes what, and how to submit

Catholic publishing houses are more open than evangelical ones. Of the 16 operating houses below whose pages we could read, 13 take a proposal or a query without an agent, and several reply within weeks. Each row quotes the house's own page, checked 18 October 2026 (Pauline Books & Media on 19 October). Read the exclusions first: Ave Maria Press turns away conversion stories, and neither it nor Our Sunday Visitor publishes adult fiction.

The Catholic book publishing companies in the table each link their own guidelines, not a home page. For evangelical and LDS houses, and the five-question test that sorts a real publisher from a paid service, see Christian publishers.

Searches for Catholic Book Publishing Co lead to one company: Catholic Book Publishing Corp., founded in New York in 1911 and now in Totowa, New Jersey. It calls itself "the largest and leading liturgical publisher" and prints the St. Joseph editions. Christian Prayer (Catholic Book Publishing) is "the official one-volume edition" of the Liturgy of the Hours. It does not work like the other houses: "manuscripts are purchased outright; there are no royalties and no advances." Its Resurrection Press imprint takes proposals on "prayer, healing, and spirituality" and negotiates royalties.

Franciscan Media is gone, although at least one list of Catholic publishers updated in October 2026 still includes it. The friars ended its operations at the end of 2025; its daily features continue online, but its site no longer sells books. OSV News reported the closure on 6 December 2025.

Memoir and devotional writers have more doors here than at evangelical houses. Word on Fire's Luminor imprint takes memoirs, and Our Sunday Visitor's categories include prayer and the liturgical year. How to write a devotional covers the format these houses expect.

Most Catholic books do not need an imprimatur. Canon law requires a bishop's permission or approval only for a few kinds of book: Scripture translations, liturgical books, prayer books, catechisms and religion textbooks for schools. A memoir needs none, and neither does a book of reflections, though a house or your diocese may still ask for one.

The two Latin words name two steps in canon 830. A censor reads the book and gives a written opinion, the nihil obstat ("nothing stands in the way"). If it is favorable, the bishop grants permission to publish, the imprimatur ("let it be printed"). The bishop who decides is your own or the one where the book is published (canon 824). Three rules catch authors out:

• Books of prayers "for the public or private use of the faithful" need permission (canon 826 §3). A devotional made up mainly of prayers may count.
• Books on religion or morals "cannot be exhibited, sold, or distributed in churches or oratories" without it (canon 827 §4). That matters if you hope to sell in your parish.
• Approval covers "the original text but not for new editions or translations" (canon 829).

Pay-to-publish presses that market to Catholic authors are few, and the ones we found post their prices. Leonine Publishers, whose page is titled "Catholic self publishing", charges $971–1,371 for up to 23,000 words, plus $0.023 a word beyond that; by its own example, 60,000 words on its middle package cost $1,922. On 18 October 2026 it was "not accepting new authors at this time."

CatholicShop.com, which calls itself "selective", offers two deals. Under its "Standard Arrangement" it "covers all the publishing costs" and pays a 5% to 7.5% royalty. Under its "Partnership Arrangement" a cost contribution of $2,500, $5,000 or $10,000 raises the royalty to 10%, 15% or 20%.

Two other firms have names that are easy to confuse with real houses. Catholic Book Publishers, at 802 Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, sells ghostwriting, editing, design, "Amazon KDP Publishing" and marketing under the banner "Publishing for Catholic Authors". It is a different company from Catholic Book Publishing Corp. of New Jersey, which buys manuscripts. EMMAUS Publishers calls itself "a Christian book publishing company in Tampa, Florida" and lists packages at $499, $999 and $1,999. It is not Emmaus Road Publishing or Emmaus Academic, the St. Paul Center imprints in the table above.

The presses that sell packages to all Christian authors, from WestBow Press to Xulon Press, are compared on Christian publishers with their prices and royalty terms, next to a five-question test that sorts any press. The short version: every house in the table above pays you, and a service charges you.

You can publish a Catholic book yourself on Amazon KDP, which says it lets you "self-publish eBooks, paperbacks, and hardcover books for free." It prints each copy on demand and takes the printing cost out of your royalty. What you pay for is everything a house would have done: an edit, a cover and interior layout.

Start with the edit. 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. For a Catholic book, look for an editor who knows the approved Scripture translations, magisterial sources and the citation style your readers expect; Christian book editing covers where to find one.

Seek an imprimatur anyway if the book is a catechism, a prayer book or a school text, or if you want parish shops to stock it. Ask your diocese's chancery who its censor is. Canon 830 §3 requires a bishop who refuses permission to "communicate the reasons for the denial to the author".

A typical spiritual book is close to the 80,000 words those rates assume. 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 sample report on The Pilgrim's Progress shows what a chapter-by-chapter read of a faith classic looks like.