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Bible Study Guidelines - Hensley Publishing

It is not necessary to submit your full manuscript with your initial query. We prefer to receive a query letter or partial as a first contact. Along with your single-spaced cover letter, you can send the first three chapters of your work as well as a brief chapter-by-chapter summary. Please indicate in your cover letter if you are making a simultaneous submission to another publisher. Also state whether or not the manuscript is complete and if the study has been taught in a class or small-group setting. If the manuscript is not complete, indicate when you expect to finish it. After we review your submission, we will notify you if we want to review the remainder of your manuscript.

With only rare exceptions, all initial inquiries are considered unsolicited manuscripts and will be given a lesser priority than materials we specifically request. When we request additional materials from an author, the submission then becomes "solicited" and is given preferential treatment. A phone call to our office, or an in-person drop-off of un-requested material does not automatically imply that a project has been solicited, nor does it give that material priority over other submissions.

Hensley Publishing receives hundreds of unsolicited submissions each year. Unsolicited submissions are logged in according to the date they are received and are evaluated in that order. We make every effort to review submissions promptly; solicited submissions will take 6-8 weeks for a response while unsolicited submissions may take 10-12 weeks. Because of the number of submissions we receive, although every proposal is reviewed, we cannot acknowledge any submission, give status reports on any submission, or return any material that does not include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. If you do not send a reply device with sufficient return postage, your materials will be discarded.

If you haven't heard from us 12 weeks after the date you mailed us your manuscript, feel free to send a postcard reminder.

Hensley Publishing does not publish fiction, New Age, personal prophecy, sermons, graduate theses, dissertations, art books, cartoons, comics, expose's of prominent persons or organizations, books of quotations, poetry, articles or short stories, coloring books, personal-experience books, music, plays, or author subsidized books.

Manuscript Guidelines

Hensley Publishing is a publisher of Bible study workbooks. Our purpose is to get the reader directly involved in studying the Bible, not studying about the Bible. Therefore, we look for studies which require reader involvement.

Your Bible study should be tried and proven. If you have not taught it in a class or small-group setting, do so before you query us. The study should show readers that the Bible is relevant for their lives today, and then tell them how to apply biblical truths and principles. It should involve readers through completion questions, discussion questions, self-evaluation, or behavior or attitude adjustments they need to make. It should cross denominational lines, but not step outside the bounds of the Christian faith.

In your submission, specify your target audience. Present the purpose or the necessity of the material covered in the study. Describe how your study is different from similar books on the market. Tell why the individual needs this information. Explain what the individual will get from each chapter how he or she will benefit, what changes they might see, how they will be better for having lived the principles. Then enter into the subject of the chapter by developing specific points.

We prefer topical studies to book studies, however, thematic or verse by verse studies of individual books of the Bible are reviewed. We prefer studies with no less than 6 lessons and no more than 13. Daily or weekly sessions are acceptable. All studies must clearly state the translation or paraphrase from which scripture references are taken. Whatever the translation, use the version that best illustrates your message.

We use endnotes. Identify endnotes within chapters with consecutive superscript numbers. Begin renumbering in each chapter. Endnotes must include the author, name of the book, publisher, state where published, copyright date, copyright holder, and page number of quote. Photocopies of the book's copyright page and the actual quoted material from that book are required on a contracted manuscript. The author is responsible for obtaining permissions and paying fees for use of copyrighted material.

Do not send your only copy and do not send original artwork, documents, photographs, slides, or any other type of irreplaceable material unless requested to do so.

Your manuscript should be a maximum of 200 typewritten, double-spaced pages, or about 50,000 words.