How to Prepare Your Manuscript for a Christian Publisher

Know what your book is for

Before anything else, write one sentence that says who the book is for and what it will do for them. If you cannot, the manuscript is not ready, however polished the prose. Every chapter should be able to point back to that sentence. Chapters that cannot are the ones a developmental editor will ask you about first.

Length and structure

Christian nonfiction commonly runs 40,000 to 70,000 words. Devotionals can be shorter, especially with a fixed number of readings. Memoir often runs longer. Whatever the length, the structure should be visible in the table of contents alone: a reader should be able to see the journey from the chapter titles.

Use consistent chapter openings. If chapter one starts with a Scripture and a story, they all should. Keep headings to two levels. Put questions for reflection, if you use them, in the same place in every chapter.

Handle Scripture with care

Quote from a translation, not from memory, and name the translation in the copyright page. Use one primary translation and note when you quote another. Check every reference, including chapter and verse numbers, against the source. Editors find more errors in Scripture references than in any other part of a Christian manuscript, and readers notice every one.

Know the permission limits for the translations you use. Most allow a generous number of verses without written permission, provided the quotations are not a complete book and do not make up more than a set share of your text, and provided the required credit line appears. Those limits differ by translation.

The self-editing pass

Do one full pass before submitting. Read the manuscript aloud, or have your device read it to you; the ear catches what the eye slides past. Cut every place where you have said the same thing twice. Replace vague spiritual language with the concrete thing you mean. Check that every story serves the chapter it sits in.

Our free Self-Editing Checklist and Manuscript Preparation Guide on the resources page walk through this pass step by step.

Formatting for submission

Keep the file simple. Design comes later; what an editor needs is clean text.

• A single Word document, 12 point serif font, double spaced, one inch margins.
• Chapter titles as headings, using the Heading 1 style, so the structure is navigable.
• No manual formatting for layout: no tabs for indents, no extra blank lines between paragraphs, no page breaks except before chapters.
• Scripture quotations in normal text, with the reference in parentheses after the quotation.
• A front page with the title, your name, word count, and contact details.

What happens when it arrives

At Tranquility Pages a submitted manuscript goes to assessment. We read it, tell you honestly where it stands, and recommend the level of editing it needs, with a price and a timeline. If it needs substantial developmental work, we say so before any work begins. That assessment is part of the free consultation, whether or not you continue with us.