Category: Open Submissions

An open call for submissions from picture book creators of colour

*Please note that submissions are now closed*

If you’re an author or author-illustrator of colour, we want your picture book stories!

Last year’s call for submissions resulted in the signing of two new picture books. Publishing first in July 2023 will be Nabil Steals a Penguin, written by Nishani Reed and illustrated by Junissa Bianda, a hilarious story about friendship and family, welcoming newcomers, and a boisterous penguin who loves curry. This will be followed by Daddy is Cleaning, written by Angel Dike, a witty and warm celebration of the relationship between a father and baby, and the everyday tasks that descend into complete chaos when the baby ‘helps out’.

We were bowled over by the variety of submissions we received and will be running the picture book open submissions window again this year, from the 17^th to 31^st October 2022. We hope that this project will help us increase the diversity of our picture book creators, and publish stories with characters and themes that better reflect the multicultural society in which we live.

There are no restrictions in terms of theme, plot or characters, but texts must be suitable for children aged around 3–5 and can be in prose or rhyme (though prose is slightly preferred from the perspective of selling stories internationally).

Before submitting your stories to us, we would like to ask that you familiarise yourself with current fiction picture books for children aged around 3–5, especially if you’re new to writing for this age group.

Please send no more than three picture book texts to [email protected], along with a short biography in the body of the email. I’m afraid any submissions received after the 31^st of October will not be considered. If you miss the deadline, please do submit the next time we run the open submissions window.

With the help of my colleagues in the picture book team, I will review all submissions, and we will respond to you by the 16th of January 2023 to let you know whether or not you have been shortlisted.

It’s free to submit stories, and we welcome submissions from around the world, but they must be in the English language and unpublished anywhere in any country. Authors and author-illustrators must be aged 18 or older.

Texts should be no more than 1,000 words each and submitted as a Microsoft Word document (or similar document that can be opened in Microsoft Word) or Adobe PDF file. They should be sent as an email attachment. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept paper submissions.

If you are an author-illustrator, texts can be accompanied by your artwork. PDFs should be no more than 5MB in total. If you’re an author-illustrator, please also include a link to your website and/or social media pages, where we can view more of your artwork.

If you’re not an author-illustrator, you don’t need to include any illustrations. Feel free to include illustration notes if needed but keep these to a minimum.

Don’t worry if you forget to attach something to your email. Please resend the entire submission with an alert at the top to let us know to delete your earlier submission.

If you have any questions, email [email protected]. I’m looking forward to hearing from you, either via your agent, or directly from you if you don’t have one.

Good luck!

Alice Bartosinski

An open call for graphic novel submissions

*Please note that submissions are now closed*

Are you a writer or writer-illustrator with a great graphic novel up your sleeve? We want to hear from you!

At Nosy Crow, we pride ourselves on publishing talented authors and illustrators from a diverse range of backgrounds across a range of formats, and we are hugely excited to add fresh and original graphic novels to this range. As long-time readers of graphic novels, we are passionate about the storytelling possibilities they present as well as the opportunity to reach even more readers and to foster a genuine love for reading in all its forms.

If you are a creator of graphic novels, read on for information on our submission guidelines!

What we are looking for:

An exciting, commercial graphic novel for children between the ages of 5-12, in any fiction genre. The main characters can be humans, animals, fantasy creatures or a mixture – the possibilities are endless!

If you are new to children’s publishing, standard target age ranges are 5-7, 7-9 and 9-12. We recommend you look at already published fiction books and graphic novels in the market to get an idea of what is out there.

Entry criteria:

Please send the following to [email protected]:

A graphic novel script/story (about anything for children aged 5-12 and minimum five sides of A4)
A one-page synopsis
A short biography (max 300 words)

If you are an illustrator, please also send:

Max three double-page spreads of your graphic novel
Links to further sample artwork in your portfolio
Submissions can be in black-and-white or full colour

Please send no more than three submissions per person.

Submissions window: 1^st August 2022 to 30^th September 2022. Unfortunately, any submissions received after this time will be deleted.

Formats accepted are:

Adobe PDF for illustration spreads
Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word (or similar) for script, synopsis and biography
PDFs should be no more than 5MB in total

Your submission must be:

Unpublished anywhere in the world
In the English language
By someone aged 18 or older

The Fiction team will review all submissions sent in the two-month window. We aim to reply to everyone, whether you are successful or not. However, we are hoping for a large volume of submissions, so it may take some time to get back to you. Please don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear back immediately!

If you forget an attachment in your email, don’t worry. Please resend your whole submission and let us know at the top, so we can delete your previous email.

If you have any questions, please email [email protected].

We look forward to hearing from you.

Good luck!

Halimah Manan

LGBTQ+ Open Submissions

*Please note that submissions are now closed*

Are you a member of the LGBTQ+ community?

We want your picture book stories!

At Nosy Crow, we have a diverse range of authors and illustrators who create amazing picture books. But we want our list of picture book creators to reflect more closely the diversity of the world around us.

With this in mind, we will be holding open submissions during Pride Month (June 2022) for LGBTQ+ picture book writers and writer-illustrators.

Texts must be suitable for children aged around 3–5 and can be in prose or rhyme (though, from the perspective of international selling, prose is probably preferable). Stories can feature human, animal or fantasy characters, or a mixture. They can be about anything you can imagine, although we are especially interested in submissions that are informed by the writer’s or the writer-illustrator’s LGBTQ+ identity and experience, such as (but not in any way limited to) alternative family structures and celebration of individuality.

Please send no more than three picture book texts to [email protected], along with a short biography in the body of the email. The window for submissions is for a limited time only, from the 1^st of June 2022 to the 15th of July 2022. I’m afraid any submissions received after this time will not be considered. If you miss the deadline this time, please do submit the next time we run the open submissions window.

With the help of my colleagues in the picture book team, I will review all submissions, and we will respond to you by the 31st of August 2022 to let you know whether or not you have been shortlisted.

It’s free to submit stories, and we welcome submissions from around the world, but they must be in the English language and unpublished anywhere in any country. Writers and writer-illustrators must be aged 18 or older.

Texts should be no more than 1,000 words each and submitted as a Microsoft Word document (or similar document that can be opened in Microsoft Word) or Adobe PDF document. They should be sent as an email attachment (no paper submissions).

If you are a writer-illustrator, texts can be accompanied by your artwork. PDFs should be no more than 5MB in total. If you’re a writer-illustrator, please also include a link to your website and/or social media pages, where we can view more of your artwork.

If you’re not a writer-illustrator, you don’t need to include any illustrations. Feel free to include illustration notes if needed but keep these to a minimum.

Don’t worry if you forget to attach something to your email. Please resend the entire submission with an alert at the top to let us know to delete your earlier submission.

If you have any questions, email [email protected]. I’m looking forward to hearing from you, either via your agent, or directly from you if you don’t have one.

Good luck!

Alice Bartosinski

Senior Commissioning Editor, Picture Books

Luna Rae is Not Alone is now available as an audiobook

Today we’re delighted to share a brand new audiobook edition of Luna Rae is Not Alone by Hayley Webster – a wise, warm and uplifting coming-of-age story about families and friendship, from a beautiful new voice in children’s fiction.

Beautifully narrated by Rosie Jones, you can buy the audiobook of Luna Rae is Not Alone from Audible, Amazon, and Apple now – and you can listen to a preview of the audiobook below.

Buy the audiobook.

You can also read the opening of the book below:

And you can buy the print edition of Luna Rae is Not Alone from Waterstones here, from Bookshop.org here, and from Amazon here.

The Boy Who Met a Whale is now available as an audiobook

Today we’re delighted to share a brand new audiobook edition of The Boy Who Met a Whale, by Nizrana Farook – a brilliant adventure packed with peril and mystery, perfect for 9-12 year olds. And you can listen to the first chapter of the new audiobook edition below!

Currently being championed as the Independent Booksellers’ Children’s Book of the Month for January, The Boy Who Met a Whale is adventure at its best – a courageous hero, a mystery, and a perilous journey with a huge blue whale.

You can buy the audiobook of The Boy Who Met a Whale from Audible and Amazon now – and you can listen to the preview of the audiobook below.

Buy the audiobook.

Read the opening chapters of the book:
Buy the book.

An open call for submissions from writers and writer-illustrators of colour

*Please note that submissions are now closed*

Today I’m very happy to announce a call for open submissions from writers and writer-illustrators of colour.

Here at Nosy Crow, we publish brilliant and talented authors and illustrators from a diverse range of backgrounds. But we want to increase that diversity. It’s incredibly important to us that children are able to see themselves in the books we publish, and also that our books allow children to experience worlds and hear voices that are not like their own. And these worlds and voices need to be authentic. If you’re a writer or writer-illustrator of colour, we need your picture book stories!

Please send no more than three picture book texts to [email protected], along with a synopsis of each story and a short biography in the body of the email. The window for submissions is for a limited time only, from the 21^st January 2021 to the 18^th February 2021. I’m afraid any submissions received after this time will be deleted. If you miss the deadline, don’t despair; we would like to run the open submissions window again in the future.

With the help of my colleagues in the picture book team, I will review all submissions sent within this window. We are hoping for a large volume of submissions, so it may be a few weeks before we get back to you. If you haven’t heard from us by the 31^st of April 2021, I’m afraid your submission has not been successful.

It’s completely free to submit, and we welcome submissions from around the world, but they must be in the English language and unpublished anywhere in the world. Writers and writer-illustrators must be aged 18 or older.

Picture book texts should be no more than 1,000 words each and submitted as a Microsoft Word document (or similar document that can be opened in Microsoft Word) or Adobe PDF document. They should be sent as an email attachment (no paper submissions).

If you’re not a writer-illustrator, you don’t need to include any illustrations. Feel free to include illustration notes if needed, but keep these to a minimum.

Don’t worry if you forget to attach something to your email. Please resend the entire submission with an alert at the top to let us know to delete your earlier submission.

If you’re new to writing picture books, we strongly advise you to immerse yourself in the genre and read as many current picture books as you can before submitting your texts to us, in order to give you a richer understanding of what makes a great story. Texts should be suitable for children aged around 3–5 and can be in rhyme or prose. They can feature human characters, animal (or fantasy!) characters, or a mixture – and they can be about anything you can imagine!

If you have any questions, email [email protected] – please don’t ring our office. I’m looking forward to hearing from you, either via your agent, or directly from you if you don’t have one.

Good luck!

Alice Bartosinski

Senior Commissioning Editor, Picture Books