I am just starting out and I do not have a lot of money to pay for all these packages and high end publishers. Any ideas of where to go through and what to do?

All Answers To Questions

This web site lists a number of Christian Publishing companies. Also you may want to talk to people at your church to see if they have any suggestions or advice about how to proceed.

Any publisher that asks you for money is a self-publishing company, whereby you pay them to print copies of your book. Self-published books almost never sell - most bookstores refuse to stock them, and any marketing or publicity would have to be done by the author. Self-publishing is also known as 'vanity publishing', and with good reason. The books that you see in bookstores are not self-published. They've been published through legitimate publishing companies. A legitimate publishing company asks for no money from its authors, but of course, it will also only agree to publish work that it considers to be of a high enough standard to sell. Visit your local bookstore and check out the Christian literature there, and do some research online for Christian publishers. Once you've got a list of publishers who work with that kind of material, find out how they like to receive queries. Most will ask you to send them a letter and a brief synopsis of your book before they will look at your full manuscript. Occasionally they may ask for the first couple of chapters first. Another option - and probably a more realistic one - would be to approach literary agents. Approach them in much the same way as you'd approach a publisher, but instead of publishing your book, an agent who likes your work and agrees to accept you as a client will do the 'selling' for you. They will contact publishers on your behalf and try to broker a good deal for you. They will then take a small percentage of your earnings from the book as their fee. But again, a reputable agent WILL NOT ask you for any money up front. They only get paid if your book sells, basically.

Get the Writer's Market book. It has legitimate publishers and will tell you all you need to know.

Here is a page from Zondervan, one of the largest Christian publishers with other avenues to pursue. http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Company/Policy/Submission.htm?QueryStringSite=Zondervan And another page from Bethany House http://www.bethanyhouse.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=9FC2E1F4E2464E5EADE1430BB2DF94E0&type=gen&mod=Core+Pages&gid=7F623735BC6548ADA400EDEBF235C8E4