Submission Guidelines
Review the Manuscript
Before you submit your manuscript for review, we highly recommend you take some time to review your manuscript one more time in its entirety. Though you may have read your manuscript hundreds of times already, you will be surprised what you will find when you read it for the 101st time! Keep in mind you are about to submit a book that may be published and available for anyone to see and read.
Format your Manuscript
- Submit your file as a Microsoft Word document. This is the only acceptable format.
- All the text of the manuscript should be set to Times New Roman, 12 point font.
- All Chapter titles should be set to Times New Roman, 16 point font, bolded and centered on the page.
- All parts of the manuscript should be included in the correct order.
- Table of Contents should only include list of chapter names.
- No headers or footers are to be included.
- If your book has scripture quotations, each quotation needs both the reference ("John 3:16") and the translation ID ("NIV").
- If your book contains line breaks—a horizontal line between paragraphs to signify a scene change—replace them with five X's ("XXXXX") on their own line. Our graphic designers will search the manuscript specifically for five X's in a row, so the number of X's is important.
- If your book contains indented quotes or verses longer than three lines, insert five Z's ("ZZZZZ") above and below each quote or verse. Again, our graphic designers will search the manuscript specifically for five Z's in a row, so the number of Z's is important.
- Your document should be typed in sentence structure with rolling returns only.
Photos, Graphics and Tables
If the acquisitions department has approved black and white photographs, graphics, tables or charts in your book, those elements need to be handled in a special way to ensure a high quality and professional product. This page also applies to you if your manuscript currently has photograph captions, journaling lines or text boxes.
Our design department is Macintosh based and uses Adobe products (such as InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator). We do not use Microsoft Word when we "design" your book—we only use Word to edit the manuscript—so any content that isn't words or sentences needs to be removed from the main manuscript file and submitted separately so they can be properly inserted at the design stage.
We consider all aspects of the manuscript (including images, captions, charts, and tables) to be the "content" of the book. All content must be submitted in the appropriate format in order for production to begin. We cannot accept your manuscript if it violates any of the following guidelines. Again, it is for your benefit that these issues be taken care of so that we can provide you with the best product possible!
- Tables and charts must be removed from the main manuscript file. Place each table and chart in its own individual Word document. Each Word document should be named chronologically according to appearance in the manuscript (i.e. Table 1, Table 2; Chart 1, Chart 2, etc.). In place of the table or chart, insert a corresponding "Note to Layout" label in the text of the manuscript (i.e. Note to Layout: Insert Table 1). All tables and charts must be submitted before production can begin.
(If you can create a PDF of your table, make sure it is formatted to a 6x9 page, allowing an inch all the way around the page for margins and labeled the same—Table 1, etc.)
- Captions and text boxes must be removed from manuscript. Place all captions for photographs and any text boxes or pull quotes in a separate Word document as a running list. Each caption or text box should be labeled chronologically according to appearance in the manuscript (i.e. Caption 1, Caption 2; Text Box 1, Text Box 2, etc.). In place of the caption or text box, insert a corresponding "Note to Layout" label in the text of the manuscript (i.e. Note to Layout: Insert Caption 1). All captions should be named correspondingly to the photographs they go with if they are going to be in a separate photo section. All captions and text boxes must be submitted before production can begin.
- If your book has graphics within the manuscript, remove them from the manuscript file and send them each separately. Acceptable formats for graphics include TIFF, EPS, PDF, Adobe Photoshop and high quality JPG files. The resolution should be 300dpi or higher. Make a note in the manuscript of the filenames where the graphics belong (i.e. Photo 1, Graphic 2).
You must own the copyright to an image or be licensed to use it in order to include it in your book. Merely mentioning where you found the image is not enough. Images taken off the internet are not free or public domain.