Case study · Christian & faith · 2025
ASIN B0DVKM2WPF
A senior pastor with fifteen years of Wednesday-morning teaching notes wanted a 365-day devotional. We adapted his notes into a daily-format manuscript, ran a theology read by an evangelical specialist, and printed a 5,000-copy hardcover run for direct congregation distribution. Fourteen congregations have since adopted it for their members.
Inside the project
Working shots from this engagement — interview sessions, manuscript pages, cover concepts, launch day.
The conversion from teaching notes to devotional is structurally underestimated. The notes are weekly thematic; a devotional is daily standalone. Every entry needs to read as a complete thought — scripture, reflection, prayer — without requiring context from the day before.
The theology read by a same-tradition specialist caught three paragraphs that were doctrinally loose in ways that mattered to the audience. For faith-based books, the theology read is the analogue of a developmental edit for a novel — same load-bearing role, different specialist.
The 5,000-copy hardcover print run was the right format. Devotionals get used daily for a year. Paperback wears out. A cloth-bound hardcover with a stitched binding survives. The print quality is what allowed the pastor-to-pastor distribution that put the book in 14 congregations.
“I had teaching notes. The studio gave me a devotional. The structural work to turn one into the other was the whole engagement; I underestimated it before we started.”
Cover rounds
The shortlist we presented to the author before round-one revisions. The selected concept is the second in the strip.
Project facts
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