Submission Guideline for Authors
Blue Horse Books is an imprint of Great Lakes Literary, LLC, focused on good regional books for young readers.
We publish only a few books each year, selecting only those manuscripts that fit our mission and that we feel we can successfully market, given our particular niche. We specialize in chapter books for young readers, ages 8-12, rooted in aspects of regional heritage and culture.
We look for manuscripts with positive protagonists, good values, and enjoyable storytelling.
For the best idea of our publishing interests, review our other titles found here on our website, www.bluehorsebooks.org.
If you are writing about an area, we expect you to have a personal familiarity with the site and its stories. If you are writing about an ethnic group, such as a Native American tribal heritage, we prefer that you are a member of that group yourself or have long-term and close ties to it, to provide the accuracy and sensitivity to the culture that we expect in our books. We do on occasion publish works by people who grew up outside of the culture they write about, but in that case the manuscript must pass additional levels of review. The deeper your understanding of your topic, the more your work will appeal to us and to our readers.
Chapter-book novels for young readers ideally would be in the range of 25,000 to 35,000 words. We recommend lots of dialogue, emotional growth in the main characters, and a strong sense of place.
To Query Blue Horse Books
If you have looked at our other titles and feel you have a manuscript that might be of interest to us, our submission process is informal. The best way to approach us is to send a brief description of your novel or project idea and highlights of your writing career, including publishing credits and credentials, to the editor, Philip Martin.
Email queries are preferred.
Email address, send to Philip Martin
philip_martin [at] sbcglobal.net
To use, just remove the [at] and replace with the @ symbol.
For mail queries:
Blue Horse Books
3147 S. Pennsylvania Ave.
Milwaukee, WI 53207
414-294-4319 (phone)
If the project seems to be in our field of interest, we will contact you to request more information.
To submit sample chapters or full works, the manuscript should be typed and double spaced.
(You may send files by email, as attachments in standard word-processing programs.)
Remember, we select only a very small number of projects that fit our interests and match what we feel we can publish successfully.
Thank you for your interest in our work.
Blue Horse Books