When Going Postal is a Good Thing

With today’s day and age and the wonderful world of email, many authors negate or just plain forget about sending postal submissions. Many of these places are just as good, if not better to send your work to. It really doesn’t cost that much to send out via snail mail every now and then. And it’s really fun when you get something other than bills in your regular mailbox, especially if it’s a response from a publisher!


Even though using email is faster and more convenient, this doesn’t mean publishers accepting only postal submissions are in the stone-age and should be counted out. It is just their way of handling their flow of submissions. Plus it’s also considered a filtering mechanism. Most writers are less likely to send every single manuscript they have this way. And writers who do send via postal mail are often more cautious about what they send, making sure their manuscripts better fit the publisher’s guidelines. This also minimizes unwanted manuscripts.

I want to remind everyone that this list is geared towards children’s and young adult authors and are advance paying publishers, unless stated otherwise.

So here’s a list of publishers that accept postal submissions to get you started.

Peachtree Publishers: From picture book to YA submissions. Watch out for the special note on genres.

Dial Books for Young Readers: A YA imprint of Penguin. Responds only if interested.

Tor Books: Part of Macmillan. Chapter books, middle grade, YA. Genres: Science fiction and Fantasy

Holiday House: Early picture books to YA. Only responds if interested.

Seven Stories Press: New YA imprint Triangle Square. Political and social issues (fiction/non-fiction)

Big Mouth House: An imprint of Small Beer Press. Publishes for readers 10 and up. Also accepts short story collections.

Again, this is list is just to get you started, but there are plenty of other places out there to look into. Even though it might be a little more out of the way to send, it’s worth looking into. Remember to read all the guidelines and follow them closely. Good luck and have fun with it!