URBAN CHRISTIAN Writing Guidelines:

Genre: Christian/Inspirational fiction
Fiction Manuscript word length: Range of approximately 65,000 - 85,000 words  (*Please adhere to word count range)
Manuscript pages: Range of approximately 260-300 pages  (*Please adhere to page count range)

The Urban Christian imprint publishes works of fiction that consist of predominately African-American characters and portray life-changing, dramatic, redeeming tales highlighting life, love and intrigue in the Christian community. Storylines must be entertaining yet inspiring, and the characters must ultimately work to resolve issues, difficulties and challenges through faith in God and the power of prayer.  Titles produced by Urban Christian have mass appeal because they tell stories that reflect today’s challenges and triumphs through realistic characters and situations to which readers can relate. Though stories are not preachy in nature, the spiritual “feel” and redeeming message is never lost throughout. Urban Christian novels will not feature any profanity, graphic sex scenes or explicit sexual innuendos, including but not limited to the naming or describing of male and female genitalia.  Submissions containing any of these characteristics will be immediately rejected.

If you have a manuscript that falls under this specific genre (please, no poetry) and are interested in Urban Christian reviewing it for consideration of publication, please adhere to the following Submission Guidelines:

1) Please submit a one-page synopsis of the novel and the first four chapters only of your manuscript.  Submissions should be typed (no handwritten submissions) and double-spaced using a size 12 font (Times New Roman, Arial or Courier recommended and preferred). Each page should be numbered and contain the author’s name as well as the title. Do not email submissions.

2) The cover page should contain the author’s name, address, phone number, email address and the title of the submission.

3) Please include a self-addressed postage paid envelope of which the full submission may be returned to you in if need be, otherwise, submissions Urban Christian does not wish to consider for publication will be destroyed.

4) Please allow three to six months from the date of submission to be informed whether or not we wish to review and consider the full manuscript.  If interested, the full manuscript will be requested.  The full manuscript should not be submitted in full unless requested.  If your manuscript is selected for publication, you will be required to send the entire manuscript via hard copy as well as email.