Erica Verrillo's Blog, page 92

Sex Sells: Self-Published Romance Writers Dominate

He's brawny, and she's ... flexible
Digital Book World has recently analyzed some statistics on romance book sales in Europe. It is not surprising that romance/erotica is the top-selling genre. Sex sells. (Freud didn't really need to teach us that.)

What is interesting is that 1) ebooks dominate, which means, 2) Amazon, Nook, and Apple dominate, which means, 3) lower-priced books dominate.

In this genre, readers go for cheap titles, which means self-published ebooks outperform their traditionally published counterparts. In short, self-published romance writers actually stand a chance at success.

If you are a romance, writer click on the link below for your top resources.

Top 6 Sites for Romance Writers
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Romance Ebook Sales Stats From Europe: Dominance and Submission

Digital Book World, June 9, 2014 | Gareth Cuddy

In a genre full of dominance and submission, we rip away the bodices and lift the masks to reveal the truth behind the sales figures.

Figures from the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) in this report from late last year highlight that romance/erotica is the top selling ebook genre and has the largest gap in digital vs. physical shares. That report also explains how Amazon, B&N Nook and Apple have 95% of the market between them, heavily skewed in Amazon’s favor. Dominance and submission, anyone?

The first thing that pops-up when discussing the romance and erotica genre is the impact of self-publishers. It is particularly strong in this area and has turned this genre into probably the most competitive space. It’s a honey-pot for avid readers and self-published authors – a match made in heaven if ever there was one!

Read more here...

Established Agent Looking for New Clients

Reader's Digest recently announced that Andrea Hurst was opening her doors to new writers. Andrea is an established agent with a good track record. Make sure you go to the site and read the submission guidelines carefully.
_________________________________________ Andrea Hurst, President of Andrea Hurst & Associates, is reopening submissions this summer to unsolicited queries from June 1 – September 1, 2014. Andrea Hurst is an established agent with over 25 years experience as a published author, developmental editor for publishers, and skilled literary agent. Her clients and their books have appeared on the Oprah Show, Ellen DeGeneres Show, Good Morning America, National Geographic network and in the New York Times.She is not always open to submissions, so this is a rare opportunity.

What she is seeking: “I am looking for upmarket, book club women’s fiction, commercial women’s fiction/romance (contemporary or historical), young adult fiction, and most areas of nonfiction (authors with a substantial platform who have already developed a solid, highly polished proposal – this includes memoirs, health/wellness, business, self-help/personal growth, memoir, cookbooks, pet books, spirituality). As of 2014, we are now accepting middle grade contemporary fiction as well.”

How to submit: Submit by Sept. 1, 2014. No attachments. Absolutely no phone calls or regular mail contact, please. E-query andrea [at] andreahurst.com.

Amazon Socks it to Time Warner: Authors, Are You Paying Attention?

For those of you who are not following the Amazon vs Everybody wars, you are missing the prize fight of the century. Amazon's hard-ball tactics are part of its bid to take over the world.

I am not joking.

Amazon has monopoly on its mind, in a very big way. Now it is using its platform to deny pre-orders of Time Warner videos, including the hugely popular Lego Movie.

If you can't figure out what is happening, let me sum it up for you: 

1) Amazon cornered the Internet market on sales of electronics, media, etc. by offering lower prices, a greater share of royalties for self-publishers, fast delivery, etc. 

2) Amazon then used its expanded platform to make unilateral changes in book pricing agreements, forcing publishers to reduce their wholesale prices to Amazon, while Amazon maintained its retail prices. This resulted in losses for publishers, especially the small ones, reduction in royalties for their authors, and increases in Amazon profits. 

3) Publishers objected. Authors objected. Stephen Colbert objected.

4) Amazon delayed releases of books by the publishers who'd objected, delayed shipping, and pulled pre-releases, which normally garner a huge percentage of sales, while simultaneously offering other "equivalent" and/or cheaper products.

5) Competing retailers started offering the books that Amazon had blacklisted - at a discount. Walmart rakes it in.

6) Amazon pulls Time Warner videos.

Why should you pay attention? 

If you are a self-published author using Amazon as your primary outlet, and are doing so because you get the lion's share of royalties along with a great platform, I can guarantee you that as soon as Amazon knocks out all of its competitors your share of royalties will plummet.

And there will be nowhere else to go.
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Amazon Stops Taking Advance Orders for ‘Lego’ and Other Warner Videos

New York Times, By David Streitfeld , June 10, 2014

The Everything Store is shrinking again. Amazon customers who want to order forthcoming Warner Home Video features, including “The Lego Movie,” “300: Rise of an Empire,” “Winter’s Tale” and “Transcendence,” are finding it impossible to do so.

The retailer’s refusal to sell the movies is part of its effort to gain leverage in yet another major confrontation with a supplier to become public in recent weeks.

In a standoff with the Hachette Book Group, Amazon is refusing to take advance orders and delaying shipments. Amazon and Hachette are wrangling over e-book terms. The retailer is in a third standoff in Germany, with the Bonnier Media Group.

Disputes between retailers and vendors happen every day. What is unusual here is not Amazon’s relentless desire to gain margin from its suppliers, but the suppliers’ growing resolve to hold the line. If other suppliers adopt the same attitude, that might have significant implications for Amazon’s pell-mell growth.

The confrontations indicate that Amazon’s long-stated desire to sell everything to everybody might be taking a back seat. The biggest book release in the middle of June is the new J. K. Rowling novel from Hachette; the biggest movie is “Lego.” Amazon is basically telling its customers to go elsewhere for them, which is a very un-Amazon thing to do.

Read the rest of this article here.

The Short Story Boom

Sam Baker says the short story is the perfect literary form for the 21st century, and I agree with him.

Between texting and tweeting, attention spans have shortened to almost microscopic proportions. We can't even B bothered 2 write whole words anymore, let alone sentences.

So, why exactly is this good news?

Well, those who are accustomed to getting to the point quickly (short story writers in other words), can now have their moment in the sun. Amazon is publishing short singles, and so are some of the romance and sci-fi publishers.

After you have finished reading why Sam Baker thinks this is the ideal time to be a short story writer, click on the link below and start submitting! 

Top 5 Online Resources for Short Story Markets
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The irresistible rise of the short story

By Sam Baker, The Telegraph - May 18, 2014

There’s no doubt about it, the short story is having “a moment”. It started this time last year, when Lydia Davis, not so much a short-story writer as a short-short-story writer (some of her tales are only a sentence long) won the Man Booker International Prize, a decision that took the literary world by storm.

When Davis’ triumph was followed by a Nobel Prize for the Canadian short-story writer Alice Munro, people started to mutter that something significant was afoot. While two successive prizes could be coincidence, the renaissance of the short story was confirmed when the American George Saunders won the inaugural Folio Prize at the start of the year for Tenth of December. Something of a writer’s writer – beloved of Zadie Smith and Jonathan Franzen – Saunders was catapulted into public view and on to the bestseller lists. And with him – blushing as it cast off its “Who? Little old me?” mantle – went short-form fiction.

Read more here ...

Godzilla vs King Kong ... or You Know Something Is Wrong When You Start Rooting for Walmart

The ongoing battle between Amazon and Hachette - or, now that I think of it, Amazon and everybody - has got the major distributors' knickers in a twist.

So, they fought back by offering discounts on Hachette books.

This week, Walmart announced that they'd had a 70% increase in print book sales after slashing their prices on Hachette titles.

While I have to confess I feel a small frisson of satisfaction whenever Amazon's wings are clipped, I just can't bring myself to root for Walmart. A monster is a monster. 

Any way you look at it, somebody's house is going to get smashed.
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Walmart cashes in on Amazon – Hachette fight

By Schuyler Velasco, Christian Science Monitor

Readers anxious to dig into the new J.K Rowling or James Patterson novel may have to wait a bit. Or, they could go to Walmart.

This week, the world’s largest retailer found a way to stick it to Amazon, one of its chief competitors. The e-commerce giant is currently embroiled in a dispute with Hachette, a major publisher that carries the two authors mentioned above, as well as David Sedaris, Nicholas Sparks, Malcolm Gladwell, and many more.

The New York Times reports that is has to do with e-book pricing. As a result, Amazon has made a point of making it difficult to purchase nearly 5,0000 titles from the site by buying less stock of print books, delaying shipping times up to four weeks, and taking away “pre-order” options from books from Hachette.

“If you order 1,000 items from Amazon, 989 will be unaffected by this interruption,” reads a press statement released by Amazon last week. “If you do need one of the affected titles quickly, we regret the inconvenience and encourage you to purchase a new or used version from one of our third-party sellers or from one of our competitors.”

Walmart, not widely known as a bastion of the literary world, pounced on the opportunity, slashing prices on Hachette titles and announcing the sale with a banner on the homepage of its website, offering both pre-orders and free in-store pickup of Hachette books. It worked: As of Friday, Walmart sales of print books (not including e-books), were up 70 percent since Tuesday, according to the company.

Read the rest of this article here.

Platform, Shmatform: Social Media - How Numbers Lie

Scroll down for an absolutely fabulous blog post by Rob Eager, which appeared on Tools of Change a couple of weeks ago. 

The article struck a chord with me for two reasons. The first is that my stats teacher said exactly the same thing to us on the first day of classes. (I think they all do.)

The other is that my experience coincides with Rob's. For example, one of the newsletters I edit has 35,000 subscribers. Only 12.3% of them open the newsletter. Of those, roughly 1% actually read more than the first article. While I love telling people that over 100,000 people subscribe to the newsletters I assemble, it certainly doesn't mean I am reaching nearly that number.

The same is true of Facebook. With over 17,000 "likes" on the FB page I manage, how many of those people actually look at any given post? I am lucky if it is a tenth of that. And very few of those people click on the link to the main site.

And don't get me started on how many of those people actually purchase anything.

Does this mean you should stop posting on Facebook, tweeting, and so on? No. The numbers may ultimately be meaningless, but prospective agents are always impressed by four or five zeros after any integer.

Apparently, none of them has never taken a stats class.
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Numbers never lie…unless you’re talking social media: Measuring results in our rush to be followed, liked, and shared

By Rob Eagar on TOC

Back in college, I took a class on statistics and never forgot the first lesson my professor taught us, which was, “Anyone can manipulate numbers to make them mean whatever they want.” I see this point magnified today by the mass adoption of Twitter and Fakebook, err – I mean Facebook. We’re at a period in time where numbers can mean so much and simultaneously mean so little.

The more people use social media, the bigger a desire to be followed, liked, and shared. We live in an age where online popularity has the ridiculous ability to control major business decisions or determine someone’s career. Yet, there’s never been a time when big numbers can be inflated so easily and deceptively. For example:

1. According to the New York Times, people can buy fake followers on Twitter for $18 per 1,000. I’ve also seen shady businesses on Ebay offer fake Facebook followers for a similar price range.

2. Facebook claims to offer an effective advertising medium, yet their average click-through rate is .0005 (5 in 10,000) In addition, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 4 out of 5 Facebook users have never bought a product or service as a result of advertising or comments on the social network site.

3. In addition, researchers at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that less than 1% of fans of the 200 biggest brands on Facebook actually engaged.

4. A guy claiming to have 50,000 Twitter followers bragged that he could use his influence to generate a bunch of sales for my new book. I put him to the test, let him send out his “tweets,” but never received a single order related to his audience. (For some time-wasting fun, check out http://fakers.statuspeople.com/ to help analyze how many legitimate Twitter followers someone actually has. 59% of Barack Obama’s followers are fake.)

5. According to ConstantContact, the average open rate for email newsletters is only around 19%. So, an author who claims to have 5,000 newsletter subscribers is probably reaching around 1,000 readers.

6. My own experience with the ShareThis WordPress plug-in for bloggers revealed that anyone can easily run up the share counter that’s displayed without actually sharing the information from a blog post with anyone. The counter may display “100” shares, but there’s no way to verify an actual number.

I’ve seen some bloggers (I don’t mean to bash, so they’ll remain nameless) promote an artificial number on their blog that combines all of their different social media followers and subscribers into one large number, which is designed to make you think their platform is bigger than it really is.

When the human ego merges with social media, there seems to be no limit to the level of nonsense that people will create. Numbers that are supposed to mean so much can actually mean very little.

As my statistics professor warned, be careful about putting too much faith in numbers. Just because someone displays 10,000 Twitter followers or Facebook friends doesn’t mean their sphere of influence is at that level. In an age where numbers are easily manipulated, we’re better off focusing on the only numbers that really matter, which is how many books sold, how many new readers added, and how many dollars deposited into the bank.

Maya Angelou, Poet, Dead at Age 86

Author, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou died at age 86 at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina last Wednesday. Angelou had been frail and suffering from heart problems, according to her agent.

Angelou's contributions to the literary world are legion. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years. Maya Angelou (Marguerite Ann Johnson) was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou attended high school in San Francisco, where she studied dance and drama. At the age of 14, she dropped out of school and became the city's first African-American, female street car conductor . She later graduated from high school,and soon after gave birth to her son, Guy. As a young woman she worked as a cook, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, cast-member of the opera Porgy and Bess.

Angelou's most famous work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of the life of Marguerite Ann Johnson up to the age of 16. Abandoned by her parents and raped at the age of 7 by her mother's boyfriend, she was homeless and became a teen mother. The book, which has been banned many times, has become a mainstay of student reading lists. Although she was called Dr. Angelou, she never went to college. But she had more than 30 honorary degrees and taught American Studies for years at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. She also spoke six languages, and worked as a newspaper editor in Egypt and Ghana.

Maya Angelou will be remembered for her stunning poetry, and for her words of inspiration, which will provide a source of strength and courage for generations to come.

4 Literary Agents Actively Looking for Clients

Here are four literary agents actively seeking new clients. Make sure to read everything on their agency website to get a feel for what they represent. Some agencies are geared more toward commercial fiction while others prefer literary works. You should also check Absolute Write to see if other authors have had experience with them.
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Andy Kifer of The Gernert Company

About Andy: Andy joined The Gernert Company in 2012 after two years working for Aram Fox, Inc., where he scouted books for foreign publishers. He grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, lived in North Carolina for five years, and worked briefly as a cross-country coach at a boarding school before starting his career in publishing. He lives in Brooklyn and runs in Prospect Park.

What he is looking for: “I’m looking for literary fiction, smart genre fiction (in particular, high-concept thrillers or sci-fi), and nonfiction with a strong narrative bent. I’m a sucker for love stories and inventive narrative structure.”

How to contact: Please query by following The Gernert Company’s submission guidelines (see www.thegernertco.com): send a query letter to info [at] thegernertco.com, with “Attn: Andy Kifer ” in the e-mail’s subject line. "I’d prefer to see the first few chapters pasted into the body of the e-mail. Snail mail queries to The Gernert Company’s office, addressed to me, are fine too! I promise I read everything that comes my way, though at Gernert we tend to respond only if something piques our interest."
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Jessica Watterson of Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency

About Jessica: Jessica Watterson joined Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency in late 2013, and currently assists Sandra Dijkstra and Elise Capron. She graduated from the University of California at Irvine with a degree in Sociocultural Anthropology and English. Jessica has made books a serious part of her life for many years. During college, she started an indie review blog which has featured author interviews and has reviewed several self-published books that eventually ended up on the New York Times Best Seller list.

What she is looking for: Jessica is most interested in all subgenres of adult and new adult romance, and women’s fiction. She is looking for heartfelt and unique romance that will instantly draw a reader in and keep them hooked.

How to contact : Email queries to jessica [at] dijkstraagency.com. “We only accept electronic submissions. Any hard copy submissions received by mail will be recycled unopened. Please send a query letter, a 1-page synopsis, a brief bio (including a description of your publishing history), and the first 10-15 pages of your manuscript. Please send all items in the body of the e-mail, not as an attachment.”

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Annette Crossland A for Authors, Ltd. (U.K.)

About Annette: In a career spanning more than 30 years, Annette has worked in high-profile positions in some of the UK and USA’s most successful publishing companies. She has worked with some of the top bestselling authors in the world, touring overseas with Elizabeth George, Dennis Lehane and Frances Fyfield, amongst others.

What she is looking for: "We are always on the lookout for exciting new work and we welcome submissions across all relevant genres by email."

Submissions: With your submission, please include your name, address, phone number, title of the material. All material should be emailed as Microsoft Word attachments. Downloadable material, e-books, or links to any such items are unacceptable. For fiction please send a synopsis and three sample chapters (50 pages or fewer) and for non-fiction send a letter outlining your intentions. No radio/theatre/TV scripts, poetry, SF/Horror genres, or short stories. Response time 12 weeks.
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Kate Johnson at Wolf Literary Services (UK and US)

About Kate: Kate Johnson is a literary agent at Wolf Literary Services, based in Glasgow and New York. Prior to joining Wolf Literary Services, Kate was an agent and vice president at Georges Borchardt, Inc., for more than eight years. She previously edited and reported at StoryQuarterly, Bookslut.com, New York magazine and elsewhere, and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

What she is looking for: Kate represents award-winning novelists and journalists. She is actively acquiring adult fiction, and looks for a work that combines both a strong story and a strong voice, hitting the sweet spot between literary and commercial. She is drawn to strong characters and sense of place, psychological suspense, family sagas, magical realism and a book that can make her laugh, cry, and miss her stop, all in one subway ride. Nonfiction-wise, Kate is on the hunt for cultural history, literary memoir, the occasional, not-too-belligerent polemic, and narrative nonfiction (particularly related to food, art, pop culture, history, politics and the environment).

She likes to work collaboratively with her authors to edit and refine their projects, through all stages of their career. She does not represent erotica, sci-fi, diet books, young adult or children’s books. Query by email preferred.

Submissions: To submit a project, please send a query letter along with a 50-page writing sample (for fiction) or a detailed proposal (for nonfiction) to queries@wolflit.com. Samples may be submitted as an attachment or embedded in the body of the email.

Amazon Squashes Major Publishing House - Again

Laura Miller quit buying books from Amazon because of its monopolistic tactics. She asks the question, "Is it impossible for book publishers to do the same?" 

In all likelihood, it will be impossible for publishers to quit Amazon as easily as Laura did - in spite of their dirty tactics. Amazon's recent punishment of Hachette authors is a case in point. When Hachette tried to negotiate better terms with Amazon, Amazon retaliated by delaying publication of Hachette titles, stalling shipments, and raising prices while offering cheaper substitutes. 

How long will Amazon get away with being the biggest bully on the block? 

As long as Amazon holds most of the cards in the Internet deck, publishers don't stand a chance.
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Goodbye, Amazon: We’re through!

By Laura Miller - Salon, May 20, 2014

No longtime observer of the power struggle between Amazon and traditional book publishing could be surprised by the news, delivered by the New York Times last week: Amazon is playing hardball with the Hachette Book Group while the two companies renegotiate the terms of their contract. As David Streitfeld reported, Amazon has been delaying shipments and raising prices on Hachette’s titles while emblazoning the Amazon pages for books like Jeffery Deaver’s thriller “The Skin Collector,” with banner ads across the top touting “similar items at a lower price” from more compliant publishers.

Such tactics — an inconvenience to consumers and a hardship for the targeted authors — are not new. When Macmillan Publishers attempted to wrest control of the prices of their e-books from Amazon in 2010, the retailer removed the buy buttons for all Macmillan titles (print as well as e-books) for a few days. Brad Stone’s “The Everything Store” documents Amazon’s view of itself as a proud predator, a “cheetah” that aims to take down the “gazelle” of book publishing.

But even cheetahs have their weaknesses, and a little poking around on Amazon’s site revealed that the retailer is not hobbling every Hachette title in its online store. Specifically, Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch,” a bestseller since it was released last fall and the recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, can still be purchased, in hardcover, at a handsome 45 percent discount and without its buyers being subjected to pitches for substitutes.

This may not comfort Sherman Alexie — an outspoken Amazon critic — much; would-be purchasers of Alexie’s acclaimed 2007 novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” will still have to wait a ridiculous two to three weeks for the paperback to ship from Amazon. Nevertheless, the exception made for “The Goldfinch” is telling.

Read the rest of this interesting article here.

16 US Children's Book Publishers Accepting Manuscripts Directly From Writers

If you are a children's or young adult author, you have the option of submitting your work directly to a number of publishers without needing a middleman. While most of these are small to mid-range publishers, some are big names in the industry.

As always, go to the publisher's website and read their lists to see if your work would be a good fit. Read their submission requirements very carefully. If you don't follow their submission guidelines to the letter, they will not read your manuscript.

Be forewarned that if you submit your work directly to a publisher, and are rejected, you can't backtrack later and submit it again through an agent. Most agents will not represent works that have been previously "shopped" to publishers.
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Albert Whitman & Company has been publishing award-winning children’s books since 1919. Albert Whitman’s special interest titles address subjects such as disease, bullying, and disabilities. Submissions: Albert Whitman and Company currently has an open submissions policy. They read and review unagented manuscripts and proposals for picture books, middle-grade fiction, and young adult novels. Email submissions only. Note:They will not review any submissions that do not follow their submission guidelines.

Arthur A. Levine Books was founded in 1996 as an imprint of Scholastic Press. Since then, they have produced more than one hundred seventy-nine works of hardcover literary fiction and nonfiction for children, teenagers, and adults. Submissions:  Picture Books: Query letter + the full text; Novels: Query letter + the first two chapters + synopsi;, Other: Query letter + five page samples (five poems, five nonfiction pages, etc.); Illustration: Three sample illustrations via attachment, and links to online portfolios. Do not send full manuscripts.

August House focuses on world folktales and the art and uses of storytelling. 
Boyds Mills Press is the trade division of Highlights for Children, Inc. They publish their books under five imprints. Submissions: Picture Books: Please submit the entire manuscript of your picture book; Middle Grade Fiction: Please submit the first three chapters (do not include chapters from the middle of the book) and a plot summary; Nonfiction: Include a detailed bibliography with your submission and a detailed explanation of the books in the marketplace that are similar to yours. Regular mail only.

Capstone publishes both fiction and nonfiction books for struggling and reluctant readers. They have four imprints and three separate divisions with over 3,000 books in print. Submissions: Most of Capstone's books are produced in-house, but they are also interested in receiving writers’ manuscripts and reviewing artists' portfolios. Fiction submissions should be sent via email, nonfiction by regular post only. They respond only if they are interested.

Charlesbridge publishes both picture books and transitional “bridge books” (books ranging from early readers to middle-grade chapter books). Nonfiction books focus on nature, science, social studies, and multicultural topics. Fiction titles include lively, plot-driven stories with strong, engaging characters. Submissions: Please submit only one or two manuscript(s) at a time. For picture books and books, please send a complete manuscript. For fiction books longer than 30 manuscript pages, please send a detailed plot synopsis, a chapter outline, and three chapters of text. For nonfiction books longer than 30 manuscript pages, please send a detailed proposal, a chapter outline, and one to three chapters of text. Regular mail only. No simultaneous submissions. Read guidelines here.

Dial Books for Young Readers is a hardcover division publishing approximately 70 titles per year for children of all ages, from preschool through young adult. It is currently a division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Submissions: Dial accepts entire picture book manuscripts, and for longer books a maximum of 10 pages.When submitting a portion of a longer work, please provide an accompanying cover letter that briefly describes your manuscript's plot, genre (i.e. easy-to-read, middle grade or YA novel), the intended age group, and your publishing credits, if any. Regular mail only. Read guidelines here.

Free Spirit publishes nonfiction books and learning materials for children and teens, parents, educators, counselors, and others who live and work with young people. They do not publish fiction. Submissions: Proposals to be considered must be sent by mail (not by fax or email). Include the following: A cover letter briefly outlining your project, the intended audience (including age ranges), and your relevant expertise; A current résumé; A detailed chapter-by-chapter outline; At least two sample chapters. (If a full manuscript is available, you may send it.); A market analysis with a comprehensive listing of similar titles and detailed explanation of how your project differs from available products; A description of your personal promotion plan for the proposed book (including both in-person and social media outreach). Read guidelines here.

Holiday House specializes in hardcovers, from picture books to young adult, both fiction and nonfiction for ages four and up. They do not publish mass market books, including pop-ups, activity books, sticker books, coloring books, or licensed books. Submissions: Holiday House only responds if they are interested in publishing your manuscript. Please send the entire manuscript, whether submitting a picture book or novel. All submissions should be directed to the Editorial Department, Holiday House, 425 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10017. They do not accept submissions by email or fax.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishers are the oldest publishers in the world. They publish a range of fiction and non fiction books for adults and children.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers and Clarion Books are hardcover imprints. Submissions: They do not respond unless they are interested in publishing your work. Response time is twelve weeks. Manuscripts should be typed and submitted via regular mail. They do not accept submissions by e-mail or fax. For picture books and novels, please send the entire manuscript. For nonfiction, submit a synopsis and sample chapters. Please submit exclusively to one HMH imprint only.

Ideals Children’s Books publishes fiction and nonfiction picture books for children ages 4 to 8. Subjects include holiday, inspirational, and patriotic themes; relationships and values; and general fiction. Submissions: Manuscripts should be no longer than 800 words. CandyCane Press publishes board books and novelty books for children ages 2 to 5. Subject matter is similar to Ideals Children’s Books, with a focus on younger children. Manuscripts should be no longer than 250 words. Ideals magazine welcomes the opportunity to review your poetry or prose. Complete manuscripts only, sent by regular mail.

Just Us Books publishes children’s books that celebrate the diversity of Black history, culture and experiences. Submissions: Just Us Books is currently accepting queries for chapter books and middle reader titles only. Please send a query letter pitching us your manuscript, 1-2 page synopsis of your manuscript, 3-5 sample pages of your manuscript, a brief author bio that includes any previously published work, self-addressed stamped envelope. (Submission guidelines are located on Contact page.)

Kane Miller is expanding its picture book, chapter book, and middle-grade fiction lists. They are interested in all genres (mystery, fantasy, adventure, historical, etc.), especially those with particularly American subjects. Submissions: Please send either the complete picture book manuscript, or a synopsis and two sample chapters of your fiction work. Electronic submissions accepted.

Lerner Publishing Group is one of the nation’s largest independently owned children’s publishers with more than 5,000 books in print. Their Jewish-themed imprint, Kar-Ben, is the only division accepting submissions. Submissions: (Scroll down page for PDF submission guidelines.) Kar-Ben accepts unsolicited manuscripts by regular post only.

Meadowbrook Press specializes in pregnancy, childcare, children’s poetry, juvenile novels, children’s activities, party planning, and adult humor. They are also the number one publisher of baby name books in the country, with six baby-naming books in print and total sales of over eleven million copies. Submissions: Fiction writers, please send a cover letter, your credentials and market analysis along with a table of contents and a sample chapter. Poets may send completed (funny) poems. Postal submissions only. Response time: six months.

OnStage Publishing publishes chapter books, middle grade novels and young adult novels. They do not publish picture books, short stories or poetry. Query first for non-fiction. They only publish fiction books for ages 8 to 18. Submissions: Fiction: If under 100 pages, submit the completed, double-spaced manuscript. If over 100 pages, submit the first three chapters and a plot summary. Cover letter with market analysis required. Submissions may be sent via regular mail or email. Please read author guidelines here.

Pants On Fire Press, located in Winter Garden, Florida, publishes picture, middle-grade and young adult books. They are always on the lookout for Action, Adventure, Animals, Comedic, Dramatic, Dystopian, Fantasy, Historical, Paranormal, Romance, Sci-fi, Supernatural and Suspense stories. Submissions: Pants on Fire is acquiring Chapter Books, Middle-grade and Young Adult fiction. Please read complete author guidelines here.