Manuscript Submissions

Guidelines for Parenting Press

We’re glad you’re thinking about Parenting Press as a potential publisher for your material. To help you determine how well your material fits our publishing program, please read the information that follows and browse our web site.

Parenting Press’s goal is to offer useful books that teach practical life skills to parents, children, and the people who care for them. The books are nonjudgmental in attitude, useful to people with many different value systems, and full of options rather than “shoulds.” They are short, easily understood, and present material in a fresh way. All books are field tested prior to publication by a variety of people in a variety of settings. Parenting Press emphasizes practical skill-building information, based on sound theory and wide-ranging everyday experience.

If you are interested in illustrating for us, please see our Frequently Asked Questions page.

What We Do NOT Publish

There is a vast array of books that might be judged suitable and practical for parents and children. Parenting Press does not publish all of them. Please study our web site, which shows the books we have published, to get a better idea of the suitability of your manuscript for Parenting Press.

This is a general list of material not suitable for Parenting Press:

• Fiction for any age
• Children’s picture or chapter stories with or without a lesson embedded
• Books with animals as main characters
• Fairy tales, autobiographies, biographies
• Religious books
• Parenting books based on an author’s experience with one child or one family
• Academic or theoretical works
• Craft or activity books, workbooks, music
• General poetry
• Illness- or disability-based books
• Personal experience narratives

How to Submit a Manuscript

Please tell us about you:

• What uniquely qualifies you to write on your subject?
• What would you like to accomplish by having this material published?
• What experience do you have writing other books or materials? Sales history?
• What kinds of book promotion are you ready to undertake?

Tell us about your idea:

• Who is the primary audience for your material? Secondary?
• In what ways will your material be helpful to the audiences you identified?
• Comparing your manuscript to the competition among published books, how and why is your idea different and better?
• What kinds of promotion do you think will be particularly effective for you and your book?

What we need to see in writing:

• Send a letter of inquiry to us in which you respond to the questions above and relate any other information you think will help us make a decision about the suitability of your manuscript. (The mailing address is at the end of this page.)
• Send a paper copy, double spaced, of all or as much of the manuscript as you have ready with your letter. At a minimum, we need a detailed outline showing the organization of the manuscript, contents, an introduction, and two chapters showing your best and truest writing style.
• If you would like your material returned to you in the event it is not suitable for Parenting Press, also send a postage-paid reply envelope large enough to hold it.
• Do NOT send your material via e-mail.

What we will do after receiving your material:

• We will read your material carefully and may show it to our select group of parents and professionals to get their reactions.
• If the manuscript interests us and is suitably written, we will write or call with comments and questions that may allow us to go to the next step: a contract. If your idea is interesting, but you need help writing the material, we will suggest a professional writer with whom you can work on the manuscript, preparing it for resubmission.
• If the manuscript does not fit our publishing program, we will return all material you sent in the postage-paid envelope you have provided, within four months of receipt.

How We Develop a Book

Once we are convinced your material is appropriate for Parenting Press and has a sufficiently large and obtainable market, we will offer you a contract, provide you with specific instructions on how to submit your full manuscript, and give you a schedule. The schedule will cover editing, field testing, revisions, final title development, illustrating (if any), design, proofreading, and printing. As a project moves through the editorial and production processes, we will also set up a schedule for marketing and promoting the book. It is extremely important that you understand that your enthusiastic, active, cooperative participation is crucial if your book is to be as successful as possible.

Compensation

Parenting Press pays a royalty on net receipts from most sources of sales. If there is more than one author, or if there is an illustrator equally involved, the royalty is split between or among all the parties. Modest royalty advances are also possible. When appropriate, Parenting Press actively seeks special sales and foreign translation rights sales for the books, and authors receive income from these sales, too.

Parenting Press books are intended to be “modern classics” and usually remain in print for many years (some are now in their third decade). When their authors are actively involved over time, sales are greater than otherwise, directly affecting royalties.

Mailing Address for Queries
and/or Manuscripts

Follow-up inquiries: E-mail our editorial department

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