You may be right about Westbow Press and the credibility factor. But it may be more of a function of seminary book buyers only buying from publishers they already have established relationships with. If they don’t buy from Nelson anyway, for instance, then even if you published with them, it wouldn’t benefit you.

So you need to find out, first, who publishes the kinds of books seminaries and Bible schools use. Then you have to see if they’ll publish you. If you’re not a well-known name in that market, you lessen your odds of getting published.

You can call Terry Whalin at Intermedia and ask him what are the odds that they can get your book into seminaries. My guess is they don’t have connections, though Terry might, since he was an agent in that market for a long time. If you yourself have connections with any seminaries/Bible schools, that may help. Ask the person if they would consider using your content for a course as a pilot or something. If you can get even one school behind you, you can take that to a traditional publisher.

I”m afraid, though, there’s no way around the publishing time, or the authority over design, etc. It is THE main tradeoff. (You also get lousy royalties on a traditionally published book–but then, you don’t have upfront costs.)

Baker is one of the main houses that supply seminaries, I know. They are pretty picky–you need a platform (as in previously published, successful books, or a current following) and/or a PhD/seminary degree.

Everything in life, just about, is a tradeoff….

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