Submission Guidelines

What kind of material does Covenant publish?

Covenant is interested in a wide variety of topics—virtually any subject that would appeal to an LDS audience and make a fresh contribution (adult fiction and nonfiction, children’s books, holiday booklets, gift books). As you consider submitting a manuscript, here are four questions to ask yourself: (1) Is the work original, insightful, thorough, and well written? (2) Does the work appeal to a broad range of LDS readers? (3) Is the work consistent with the standards and principles of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ? and (4) Does the work tend to promote the faith of members of the Church and inspire them to lead better lives?
In addition, what is popular in the market changes from time to time, so not all genres are equally profitable, even if the work itself is well written. Please know that this factor plays significantly into our publishing decisions. Due to this difficulty, we generally do not accept poetry submissions. If you feel that your product, though containing poetry (for example, is a photography or giftbook including poetry), stands out and is marketable beyond its poetic values, you may send in a query explaining as much.

Because our market consists almost exclusively of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we do not publish material that fails to support LDS doctrine or values. Thus we usually publish only those works with specific LDS content. However, in the case of some fiction genres—including children’s fantasy, adult fantasy, historical fiction set before the mid 1800s and/or in a place where the Church was unknown, and Christmas works—we will accept general Christian-themed pieces. If you have questions about whether your finished work falls outside these parameters, you may send specific questions to our submissions department. We will not accept manuscripts that contain offensive material, including profanity, vulgarity, excessive violence, or sexually explicit or suggestive scenes.

We will consider manuscripts that are being submitted simultaneously to other publishers. We do ask, however, that you let us know you are also submitting it elsewhere, so misunderstandings can be avoided.

Submission Steps

1) Via email, please submit your manuscript along with a one-page cover letter, the Author Questionnaire form,* and a one- to two-page plot summary. For nonfiction, please include a table of contents rather than a summary.
2) In the cover letter, please include brief information on the following:
• Your background in relation to the topic of your book.
• The intended audience of your book.
• The specific LDS-oriented elements of your book.
• What makes this book stand out from others in the genre.
• Whether your work is fiction or nonfiction (for scholarly/doctrinal works, see special submission requirements below).
The length of your book. We generally do not accept books over 105,000 words (about 350 double-spaced pages) or.under 60,000 words (about 200 pages). Children’s fiction should generally be under 90,000 words, or 300 pages. Exceptions to the minimum length requirement include booklets and illustrated books, which should be under 32 pages.

Send your manuscript to Submissions@covenant-lds.com

Please do not submit original copies of photography, transparencies, or artwork, and please retain copies of any manuscripts you submit. Covenant assumes no liability for loss of artwork, photography, or manuscripts.
As the evaluation process may take several months, we ask that we have exclusive review rights for this limited time as we invest resources into evaluating your manuscript. If you prefer not to submit exclusively, please indicate as much in your cover letter.

Photograph:
After the second stage of our review process, we will notify you regarding the status of your manuscript. If we do not reject your manuscript or ask you to revise and resubmit it, it will move to the final step in our review process. If this is the case, you will be asked to please e-mail or mail on CD a high-resolution, professional-quality digital photo (at least 300 dpi) of yourself. The photo should be as flattering as possible since this is often the only venue in which the public sees you, and the photo may be used for marketing purposes. Therefore we strongly suggest using the most professional-looking and well-fitted clothing you have, having your hair and makeup done professionally if possible, and making sure there are no distracting elements in the background of the photo. Please have a professional take the photo and touch up the shot electronically where needed. In addition, please ensure that the photo is current, i.e., that it is not more than one or two years old.

Required formatting of your submission:
Your submission should conform to the following standards to facilitate our evaluation process. Any exceptions should be explained in a cover letter.
1. We request that all submissions be submitted by email as Microsoft Word attachments, and that excessive coding and formatting is not applied to the manuscript. If you cannot email your submission, please mail a CD to Submissions, Covenant Communications, 920 E. State Rd., American Fork, UT 84003.
2. Submit the electronic manuscript typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides, and in 12-point type size (Times New Roman font preferred). Double-space all extracts, footnotes, bibliography, and quotations.
3. Use a half-inch (0.5”) first-line indent on paragraphs, and do NOT insert extra returns between paragraphs.
4. Number pages consecutively—not by chapter. Do NOT insert headers or footers in the document, other than the page number, which should appear on the bottom of each page at the right margin.
5. Your manuscript should be compiled into one document, not a separate document for each chapter. Please insert page breaks between chapters, rather than hitting “return” multiple times.
6. Carefully spell-check and proofread your manuscript.
7. For nonfiction or historical fiction manuscripts, include a complete bibliography.

How does treatment of a nonfiction manuscript differ from that of a fiction manuscript?

There are special concerns when dealing with nonfiction manuscripts. When you use a quote, fact, or idea that originated with someone else, you must document the source of the information in a footnote, endnote, or in the text itself—introducing the quote appropriately. In addition, due to fair-use laws, any quotes from General Authorities of the Church must be limited in number and only used as support for your own ideas; they cannot serve as the main point of a paragraph or section. Compendium-style manuscripts are extremely difficult to obtain quotation permissions for. You must also prepare a bibliography containing all the sources you have cited in your manuscript. Use a consistent format for your footnotes and bibliography, such as those cited in the Chicago or MLA style manuals.

In order for us to verify the accuracy of a quote or fact, you will be asked to provide a photocopy of the source material, so please keep good notes. You will need to include photocopies of the copyright page, title page, table of contents, and the quote itself (with the quote highlighted) for all quoted/paraphrased sources. This is crucial for any additional source checking we may do in-house. However, in general, the author is responsible for carefully checking all sources prior to submission.

If your manuscript contains illustrations, figures, or charts that do not translate well into Word, include these on separate pages (through the mail or as a pdf) and indicate where in your manuscript you want the illustrations to appear. As with your manuscript, do not send original or irreplaceable artwork.

What is involved in the evaluation of each manuscript?

After a manuscript has passed an initial review for potential marketability, it is sent to professional evaluators with expertise in the category or subject matter of the manuscript. If the evaluators return positive reviews, an editor completes an in-depth review of the manuscript. If the work shows significant promise, it is usually returned to the author for further refinements before being presented to the New Product Committee. This committee (representing Covenant’s editing, marketing, graphics, finance, and sales departments) makes a final decision as to whether or not the manuscript will be accepted for publication.
After the committee accepts a manuscript, market research is conducted, so the marketing department may contact you for more information about your book. If this process is successful, a budget will be approved, a contract will be proposed, and your work is on its way to becoming a published work.

Once my book is accepted, what is the publishing process, and how long will it take?

To some extent, the length of time that a particular book is in production depends on both the subject matter and the length of the manuscript. For example, if your book is seasonal in nature (Mother’s Day, Christmas, etc.), it will be scheduled accordingly. A short fiction book naturally takes less time than a longer, nonfiction book with a great deal of source material. Generally, it may take six months to a year or more for a book to be published.

Once a manuscript is accepted, the author is assigned an editor who will guide the book through the production process. The editor may request one or more fine-tuning revisions by the author after a book is accepted. When the revised manuscript is returned to Covenant, it is given a thorough edit and returned to the author for review. When author and editor are satisfied (under the demands of a deadline), the manuscript goes through several professional copyedits. After incorporation of the copyedit changes, the manuscript is typeset. The typeset manuscript is then reviewed by the author and by proofreaders. Corrections at this stage are limited to typesetting errors only. The final typeset manuscript is then given to the production team, which sends it to the press.

What about marketing?

Covenant’s marketing strategies are very aggressive. We are committed to providing appropriate and innovative marketing for each new title we publish. Our sales representatives maintain close contact with hundreds of LDS booksellers in the United States, Canada, England, and Australia. We advertise our books in catalogs and other media sources.
Authors are also expected to help market their books through signings, radio interviews, and other promotional activities.
If your book is accepted for publication, you will receive further information on how you will need to be involved in that process.

* This file requires Microsoft® Word.