If you have reached this page, then thank you for your interest in us publishing your, or your client’s, work. Below, you’ll find information about what types of submissions we accept, who we accept them from, how to submit them and, most importantly, what we don’t accept. Please read this information carefully before you submit anything to us as anything that does not conform to these rules will be discarded without being read. If you follow these guidelines, you can expect to hear back from us within a few days to confirm that we have received a valid submission and, at that point, you will be provided with an estimate of when you can expect a more detailed response.
So, without further ado, here are our submission guidelines:
- We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, so please do not submit any manuscripts until we have specifically asked you to send it to us. Instead, in the first instance, you should contact us and provide the information detailed below for the specific type of book you wish to submit to us.
- Although we have published some non-educational books in the past, we are primarily an educational publisher. As a result, at the moment, we are primarily looking for submissions with a broadly educational content (although we are open to quite liberal interpretations of exactly what broadly educational means). These include submissions for our PSLS (Practical Skills for Life Sciences) series of academic textbooks, and our various series aimed at children (Draw Your Own …, Learning By Drawing and Draw Your Own Encyclopaedia series).
- If you are interested in submitting an academic textbook for our PSLS series, please contact us by email at info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com, with the subject line: Textbook Submission. In this email, please provide the following information: The proposed title of your book, your name, the names of any academic institutions you are associated with, a three hundred word summary of your expertise in the field covered by the book, a three hundred word outline of your proposed book, and a one hundred word summary of the intended audience and market. In addition, please attach a copy of your academic CV or resume to your email. We will only accept submissions for this series directly from authors and not from agents.
- If you are interested in submitting a children’s book for our Draw Your Own … series, first visit the page on this site dedicated to this series, so that you understand exactly what this series is about. If, once you have done this, if you wish to continue with your submission, please contact us by email at info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com, with the subject line: Draw Your Own … Submission. In this email, please provide the following information: The proposed title of your book (this must start with the words Draw Your Own …), your name, a three hundred word summary of your writing experience, a list of 15 possible titles for the descriptions that will form the core part of the book, and an example of one full description. This should be in the body of the email and not send as an attachment. We will only accept submissions for this series directly from authors and not from agents.
- If you are interested in submitting a children’s book for our Learning By Drawing series, first visit the page on this site dedicated to this series, so that you understand exactly what this series is about. If, once you have done this, you wish to continue with your submission, please contact us by email at info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com, with the subject line: Learning By Drawing Submission. In this email, please provide the following information: The proposed title of your book, your name, a three hundred word summary of your writing experience, a list of the general topic and the specific areas it would cover, and an example of one full description. This should be in the body of the email and not send as an attachment. We will only accept submissions for this series directly from authors and not from agents.
- If you are interested in writing a children’s book for our Draw Your Own Encyclopaedia series, first visit the page on this site dedicated to this series, so that you understand exactly what this series is about. If you still wish to proceed with your submission, the best next step is to contact us by email at info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com, with the subject line: Draw Your Own Encyclopaedia Request For Planned Titles, to request a list of planned book titles we are currently looking for authors for. In this email, you should also provide the following information: Your name and a three hundred word summary of your writing experience. We will then provide you with a list of planned titles, and if you feel that you would be suitably qualified to write one of them, you can apply to be the author for it. If we accept your application, we will provide you with a contract and a detailed template for submitting your manuscript. Note: You can also provide your own suggested title for a book in this series covering a specific subject, but this will have a much lower likelihood of success. We will only accept submissions for this series directly from authors and not from agents.
- If you are interested in submitting a children’s picture book, please note that we will only consider submissions which will help children develop key life skills, such as intra- or interpersonal skills. If you wish to submit a picture book idea, please contact us by email at info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com, with the subject line: Picture Book Submission. In this email, you should also provide the following information: Your name, a three hundred word summary of your writing experience, the key life skill(s) that your book will help children develop, the target age group, whether you have produced artwork for it as well as the words (or have a specific illustrator in mind), and a copy of the full manuscript. This should be no longer than 1,500 words at the very most (we prefer these submissions to be under 1,000 words. It should be included in the body of the email, with numbered paragraphs to show what text would be put on which pages (up to a total of 24 pages). Note: Please do not send any artwork unless we have specifically requested it. Any submissions with unsolicited artwork will be discarded on receipt. Submissions in this category can come either direct from authors or via their chosen representative.
- If you have an idea or a proposal for a broadly educational book (and you can be as imaginative as you wish with how you interpret the term broadly educational) that you would like to discuss with us, we would be happy to hear from you, or your chosen representative. In this case, please contact us by email at info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com, with the subject line: Educational Book Proposal. In this email, please provide the following information: The proposed title of your book, your name, a three hundred word summary of your writing experience, a three hundred word outline of what your book would contain, a one hundred word summary of the target audience and the educational aspects it would cover. This should be in the body of the email and not send as an attachment. Submissions in this category can come either direct from authors or via their chosen representative.
- We will accept submission of adult fiction, but only if they fall within the post-apocalyptic survival genre, and only if we feel that they are very high quality. This means that they must have a strong story line, that they must be well-written and, most importantly, that they must have been well-edited before submission .If you are not already familiar with the post-apocalyptic survival genre, then your manuscript probably isn’t for us. To give you an idea of what we’d consider, examples of books we like in this genre (other than the ones in our own For Those In Peril series, obviously) include The Day of The Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, The Road, World War Z, and the first book in the Dying To Live series by Kim Paffenroth (but not the subsequent ones). Elements of horror are acceptable, and indeed expected, but we do not accept books that only fall in the horror genre, and that do not also have post-apocalyptic survival elements. Given the above, if you would still like to submit a manuscript, please contact us by email at info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com, with the subject line:Post-apocalyptic Survival Novel Submission. In this email, please provide the following information: Your name, a three hundred word summary of your writing experience and a three hundred word synopsis of your novel. This should be in the body of the email and not send as an attachment. Please also attached a copy of the first chapter (and nothing else – that means no pictures, illustrations, CVs, resumes, entire manuscripts etc) as a PDF so we can get an idea of your writing style (don’t worry if this will not give a good idea of the plot ,or anything else, we will simply use this to get an understanding of your writing style). Submissions in this category can come either direct from authors or via their chosen representative.
- In the case of all submissions, please be aware that we may well already be working on a book very similar to the topic you suggest. If this is the case, please do not be offended if we cannot take your proposal further. If we feel that your proposal is too close to a subject we are already working on, we will not read your submission beyond the proposed title. This is to prevent any possible conflict of interests.
Thank you for your interest in submitting your work to us for publication.