Every story deserves to be heard.
I learned that before I knew what it meant.
Growing up in the early 80s, every afternoon after school I had thirty minutes with GI Joe — stories where good men and women stood against evil and came out victorious, often at a cost, but always triumphant. On Sunday mornings in my small Baptist church, I heard about another man who did the same thing. The Son of God, standing victorious over evil, sacrificing himself for those who couldn’t stand on their own.
I didn’t realize it then, but story was already shaping everything I would become.
A bifurcated life made whole
For a long time, I lived two separate lives — one of faith, one of work. Like a lot of people, I thought “vocational ministry” meant being a pastor or a full-time church worker. Then I read a small book by a Catholic monk named Brother Lawrence called Practicing the Presence of God, and something shifted permanently.
Brother Lawrence’s idea was simple and revolutionary: whatever your vocation is, do it as a service to God. Sanctify whatever your hands get about on a daily basis. Every job. Every client. Every project. All of it — an act of worship.
From that day forward, my bifurcated life became one. My faith and my work stopped living apart and started functioning as a single thing. Every person I work with became a chance to live out that calling. Every story I help tell became a small act of service — not just to the person holding the pen, but to everyone who might one day hold the book.
Thirty years of craft. One clear purpose.
I’ve been doing design work for nearly thirty years — high-end magazines, newspapers, billboards, branding, logos, pitch decks, quarterly reports, and more marketing pieces than I can count. I served as Communications Director for a church for a decade. I’ve worked with private companies, nonprofits, and community organizations as the lead designer of their marketing and communications arms.
In 2018, something changed. I wrote my first book — just to say I had done it. It didn’t sell a barrel full of copies. What it did do was send me deep into the world of self-publishing, and what I found there troubled me.
I saw the enormous gap between professionally designed books and what most self-publishing authors were putting into the world — not because their stories weren’t worth reading, but because they couldn’t afford the design work that would make someone pick them up. The prices being charged online for book design were simply out of reach for the working person who had spent a decade on their manuscript and just wanted it in the world.
And the stories sitting unread because they looked “cheap” — stories that could change someone’s life, if only they’d been given a cover worth picking up and an interior worth finishing — that made me sad in a way I couldn’t ignore.
I had the skills to change this. I was blessed to be in a position to offer professional, high-end book design at prices a working person could actually afford while still paying a mortgage and feeding their family. So that’s what I did.
I shifted my design studio to focus entirely on book design and author support. Since then, I’ve helped hundreds of writers achieve their dream of a published book. Some have gone on to significant success and thousands of sales. Others have created family heirloom pieces — print runs of two or five books, a family history to pass down through generations, a collection of college stories gifted to a daughter about to follow her mother’s footsteps to the same university. No matter the size of the project or the purpose behind it, my work is the same: I help people tell their story.
One project I’ll never forget was a coffee table book I designed for a photography studio that had partnered with a local animal shelter for a fundraiser. That book raised over $50,000 and kept the shelter running. A beautiful project, attached to a beautiful story, with a purpose that mattered. That’s the kind of work that reminds me why I do this.
Why Christian authors, specifically
The writers I feel most called to serve are the ones carrying a story they believe was given to them — a testimony, a memoir, a devotional, a message that has been living inside them sometimes for decades. They’re not always professional writers. They’re not always technically minded. But they have something to say that needs to be heard, and they deserve the same quality of design that any traditionally published author receives.
I grew up on stories that changed me. Bruce Olson. C.S. Lewis. Donald Miller. George Orwell. Brennan Manning — the glorious Ragamuffin himself. These writers shaped who I became and how I move through the world. I believe deeply that your story has that same power in someone else’s life. It just needs to reach them.
Too many people are silenced — not because their stories don’t matter, but because they didn’t know where to start, couldn’t navigate the publishing process, or couldn’t afford the help they needed. The Faithful Manuscript exists to change that.
What this site is
I spent a long time on the internet piecing together everything I needed to know about self-publishing. It took far too long. I want to cut that time down for you dramatically.
The Faithful Manuscript is your one-stop resource — a place where Christian authors at every stage of their journey can find honest reviews of tools and platforms, practical guides through the publishing process, real examples of what works and what doesn’t, and the kind of plain-language advice that treats you like the capable, called person you are.
Whether you’re a grandmother finally writing down your family’s immigration story, a pastor turning years of sermons into a book your congregation can carry home, or a young writer finishing the faith-based novel you’ve been building chapter by chapter — you belong here.
I’m a story crafter by nature and a book designer by trade. I know this world from the inside. And I’m here to make your part of the journey easier.
Work with me directly
If you’re ready to take your manuscript to the next level — professionally designed cover, polished interior, the kind of finish that makes a reader pick it up and keep reading — I’d love to talk about your project.
I offer book design services through my studio at johnedgar.design — professional, high-end design at prices built for the working author, not the publishing house budget.
Every author I work with is a partner. I join you for a piece of your journey, and we walk that piece of the road together.