Subs open for kids poetry. Closing 16th January 2022. Please allow up to three months after the closing date for a response.
Please follow on our socials and buy a book – this is the best way to understand our vision and will make the publishing relation even better if selected, as you already understand housestyle.
Think Dr. Seuss, Michael Rosen, Kenn Nesbitt…I can’t think of women poets for kids from any of the ones that I read in school or for my son…so it’d be great to have more women and, also, people from minority backgrounds to submit.
I cannot think of anything more experimental and Avant-grade than meeting the needs of the adult caregivers, mainly women like me, who read to their kids and just want a fun, cute poem with a bit of an edge in a cute book that is easy to hold while wrangling a toddler.
This is new for Beir Bua Press and came about from my, Michelle Moloney King, frustration at kids’ books. Long stories, dropped rhyme, huge books, small writing, text over colour. I am the one who reads to my three year old and I need a cute book that I can hold in one hand to read a few cute poems.
Guidelines:
Poetry collection of min 30 to max 40 pages.
Spelling is to be in UK /Irish Spelling, please no American spelling.
No names on the manuscript, I will be asking a team of readers to read these blind (this means reading without knowing the author) and select anonymously.
Ideally, you need to have a publishing record within the kids’ poetry community, magazines like https://www.thecaterpillarmagazine.com/, and the UK equivalent. Or have a great knowledge of kids’ poetry.
80% new work.
Need to have an active Twitter account (having your own website would be fantastic) and be an engaged member of our lovely poetry community. Books need to sell so that I can keep publishing – no shy poets, please!
Words poems preferably short, each poem fitting onto one page, rhyming and fun. No darkness or scary poems. These poems also need to appeal to the adult reader enough that we will want to read them again to our kids!
Font size 10 or 11, page layout A5, page count 40, no blurbs needed. Beir Bua Press designs the covers. Age range of poetry 2 to 8.
Concrete poems to be in the word doc (please disregard the tweet asking for images to be sent.) Your sub needs to be in word doc form as a manuscript.
Please, WORD or docx or Google Doc ONLY! No pdfs.
Please send the polished and proofread manuscript to Michelle Moloney King at KidsBeirBuaPress@gmail.com
Royalty paid after 35 sales at the highest rate in publishing – 30% Poet keeps copyright and all other rights. We will also be donating 10% from each sale to Féileacáin Ireland.
All queries are answered here within this post. Please only email with your submission. If your question is not answered here then the answer is no.
Subs close December 31st 2021.
I am excited to publish the very best of cool kids’ poetry!
Beir Bua Press 