Find your audience

Submissions

Pajama Press accepts unsolicited manuscript submissions when the form below is active. If it is currently inactive, please check in again at a later date. It takes time for our small team to work through the large volume of submissions.

Illustrators who wish to share a portfolio with our Art Director may send links or attachments via email to [email protected] at any time. Please note that manuscripts sent to this address will not be considered unless otherwise stated below.

Please write us an email that gives the following information:

  • A brief summary of your book. Remember that this is a summary, not marketing material—please don’t leave us in suspense about how the story’s conflict is resolved.
  • An excerpt. The first three chapters of your middle grade manuscript.
  • Information about your writing background.

What we are looking for

Pajama Press is a small literary press with high editorial and production standards. We endeavour to publish titles of exceptional quality that will receive wide critical acclaim and awards; our books are designed to successfully appeal to children, young adults, librarians, teachers, and parents.

We produce many formats popular in children’s publishing across a fairly broad range of genres: picture books, our new sturdy books for the very young, early chapter books for new readers, middle grade novels, young adult novels for pre-high school audiences and literary non-fiction.

Picture books:

700 words or less. Character-driven stories. Or stories that emphasize word play, vocabulary building, and rhythm.

Primary stories:

150 words or less. High concept, simple ideas, word play. Suitable for ages 1–3 or 2–5.

Early chapter books:

7,000-14,000 words. Stories divided into approximately 10 chapters. School-aged protagonists, single point of view. Vocabulary building, lots of dialogue. Stories about character development, overcoming challenges.

Middle-grade novels:

24,000-40,000 words. More complex, character-driven stories that feature a single or dual point of view. Realistic contemporary stories, low fantasy (reality-based fantasy rather than high fantasy), historical stories that appeal to a universal audience.

Submitting a manuscript

We publish picture books both for the very young and for school-aged readers, as well as early chapter books, and novels for middle-grade readers.

We invite stories from authors of diverse backgrounds who authentically tell their own stories.

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