Dancing with Bear is a print and e-book publisher that publishes exclusively Christian manuscripts. They publish books for adults but they also have a children’s line. They are currently open to submissions in all categories and are eager to receive quality work.
Dancing with Bear is run by an author. They know what it is like to publish in this market and the best royalties they can while still making a profit. They pay their authors 50% royalties. Most traditional publishers pay their authors between 10% and 20% percent of the royalties.
Dancing with Bear also provides editing, cover art, ISBN, and promotional services and absorb the cost of those services. It is important to have a publisher that supports you and provides additional editing and promotional services.
They are primarily a print publisher but are starting to offer certain titles as e-books. They accept YA (young adult) and children’s books as well.
Dancing With Bear has strict guidelines and is only interested in Christian books that feature traditional evangelical values, so keep that in mind before submitting and make sure to read their full guidelines that include all the details of what they won’t publish, but they are rather extreme. For example they do not publish anything that involves homosexual or bisexual characters, which this reviewer considers discriminatory.
They accept all submissions online, just make sure that your manuscript is attached as a .doc, ,docx, or rtf file. they also want single line spacing., standard 12 pt Trebuchet MS font and a 1 inch margins (left, right, top and bottom) with a 0 .5″ indent for the first line of each paragraph only.
All submissions should be thoroughly proof read. They do not want any headers or footers, and they do not want a double space after punctuation.
They also expect a query letter that includes biographical information. They are open to publishing first time authors. They try to respond to all submissions within the first four months. If you have not heard back from them by that time please send them an email query.
In conclusion if you write for a conservative Christian audience, Dancing with Bear is a great publisher for you, they really support and pay their authors. Learn more at their website.
