Submitting a children's or YA manuscript to Penguin Random House
If your manuscript will engage and excite young readers, we’d love to see it when we are open for submissions. Please take a couple of minutes to read our important guidelines.
Submit via email
We do not accept hardcopy submissions.
Submit at the right time
Submissions are only open on select dates. Submissions received at any other time will not be considered.
We do not accept
Picture books, plays/scripts, poetry or educational text books. We also do not accept submissions from outside Australia, New Zealand or Oceania (unless via an agent, or the author has a connection to the region such as citizenship or residency).
Email Submissions Checklist
All submissions must include the following
Subject Line
Include your name and the title of your manuscript.
Body Copy
In the body of the email, please include a cover letter about your submission, including:
- Your name
- Contact details including phone number, home address and mailing address (if different)
- Manuscript title and word count
- The target reading market (e.g.target age and genre) for your proposed book, how your proposed book appeals to that market, and any comparison books in the market
- A blurb or synopsis of your manuscript (no longer than 400 words)
- Details of any previous publishing history and/or any writing awards you've received
- A brief one-paragraph biography of yourself.
Attachment
Please attach the complete manuscript to the email. We accept Microsoft Word or PDF formats. The manuscript should be double spaced with page numbers.
- For illustrated texts or illustrator portfolios, please submit a PDF of no more than 32 pages. The file may need to be saved at low resolution to meet file size requirements. Please indicate in your email cover letter if the attachment is a partial or complete manuscript.
- Please ensure that file size of any attachments does not exceed 7MB total.
- We are unable to open links to file transfer or cloud services.
Email Submissions To:
If You Are a Published Children's Author
If you are directing your submission to one of our publishers in particular, please specify this in your query email. If you have already communicated with one of our publishers, you may email them directly with your query.
If You Are a Literary Agent
Literary agents should continue to submit directly to our publishers.
If You Are An Illustrator Sharing A Portfolio
You are welcome to submit an illustrator portfolio showcasing your work and illustration style/s at any time. Relevant portfolios will be shown to the Young Readers team. We will not respond to your submission but we will keep your portfolio on file and may contact you in future if we are interested in commissioning you for an illustration project. Please use 'Illustrator portfolio - [your name]' as the heading of your email.
If We Have Requested Your Manuscript
From time to time one of our publishers or editors may invite you to submit a particular project after meeting you at an event such as a writer's conference or pitching event. If you have received a direct invitation, you may send your submission (even if general submissions are closed) with the email heading 'Requested manuscript from [event] to [publisher/editor]'. If you are on the list of requested projects from the event, your submission will be considered by the Young Readers team. All other guidelines on this page continue to apply such as what to include in your email and our response times.
Please Note
We accept simultaneous submissions provided that you mention you have submitted to other publishers in your cover email. As a matter of courtesy, we ask that you inform us as soon as possible if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Please do not resubmit a manuscript you have sent previously unless invited by one of our publishers or editors. We will detect and delete resubmitted manuscripts.
Our Consideration Process
Submitted manuscripts will be considered by one or more of our publishers or editors. It may also be read by other people in-house, including (but not limited to) sales, marketing and publicity staff. Submissions are treated as confidential material.
Response
Due to the large volume of query emails we receive, we are unable to respond to submissions that are unsuccessful. If we are interested in your manuscript you will be advised in writing when your submission has been assessed. If you do not receive a response from us within four months please assume your submission is unsuccessful.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide feedback on unsuccessful submissions.