Finding the right literary agent or publisher who publishes what you write and who shares a similar set of beliefs can be a challenge. It's not that you need to agree on everything, but you do want to feel connected, like-minded, and equally yoked on the things that matter most as you fulfill the assignment God has called you to.

The first thing you need to do as a steward of your gifts and assignment is to be ready to put in the necessary work to research your options. Who is publishing what you are writing? Do they accept unsolicited book proposals or manuscripts? If not, you need a literary agent to help get you in the door. So now you need to discover which literary agent represents authors who are publishing books like yours.

I am providing some resources that group Christian publishers and literary agents in one place to make your job a bit easier.

A Comprehensive List of Christian Book Publishers

For starters, self-publisher WestBow Press put together a comprehensive list of Christian book publishers that you can go through in batches to make a list of publishers who publish what you are writing. Use their online catalogs and new release lists to see what they publish. You can also search them out on Amazon.com to see what books and authors are listed under their name.

For my Spirit-filled author and writer friends, here is a short list of Spirit-filled Christian traditional publishers:

If you know of more, please add them to the comments below.

Submit Your Book Proposal Directly to Christian Publishers

“ChristianBookProposals.com (formerly ChristianManuscriptSubmissions.com) is a service of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) and was initiated at the specific request of ECPA member publishers looking for new authors and desiring an efficient way to review unsolicited manuscript proposals.” (From ChristianBookProposals.com/about-us)

Lists of Literary Agents Who Represent Christian Authors

Next, here are a few resources for literary agents who represent Christian authors:

Reedy’s list of “The Best Literary Agents Seeking Christian Submissions”
The Christian Writer's Market Guide

Lists of Literary Agents of Color

Literary agents of color (includes agents who serve the mainstream publishing market not only Christian)
Black literary agents (includes agents who serve the mainstream publishing market not only Christian)

CAUTION: DO NOT CONTACT AGENTS ON TWITTER OR ANY SOCIAL MEDIA. FIND THEIR SUBMISSION GUIDELINES ON THEIR WEBSITES, AND FOLLOW THOSE INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONNECTING WITH THEM.

Lists of Christian Writers' Conferences

Writers' conferences are the best places to meet with a fabulous cross-section of editors and agents and pitch them your book ideas. They are also some of the very best places to take book writing classes, get help with crafting a fantastic elevator pitch and book proposal, as well as get help and one-on-one mentoring for the book project you are work on.

Westwind Communications' List of Christian Writer’s Conferences for 2023
The Christian Writer’s Market Guide keeps an updated list
Search Google for “Christian Writers Conferences”

How to Get a Publisher to Consider Your Book Ideas

I'm going to leave you with these quick tips on how to get publishers to consider your book ideas, so that you have the basics in one place for what you need to keep in mind as you seek out a publisher and literary agent:

Do your homework and put together an outstanding book proposal.
Build an outstanding author platform (speaking engagements, social media engagement, website/blog).
Research publishers' manuscript submission guidelines (most often found on their websites), and see if they publish books like yours. Then follow their instructions for submitting your book proposal/manuscript.
Get a literary agent to pitch your book to publishers that don't accept unsolicited manuscripts. Find an agent that represents books like yours and send them a query or book proposal based on their submission guidelines found on their websites. Agents can be found via Google search, at writers' conferences, and by recommendation/referral.
Meet with the publishers' acquisitions editors at writers' conferences/publishing trade shows and pitch your book idea.