SUBMISSIONS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED

What we publish

At Formy Books we publish children’s picture books for ages 0-5 & 5-7 featuring black characters and cultures. We are passionate about increasing positive black representation within children’s literature.

Voices we’re looking for

Under-represented, disadvantaged socio-economic groups, own voices, marginalised. We are particularly interested in championing black writers. We want to hear from new creative voices. We are not currently open to non-fiction. We love original ideas, fantasy stories, comedy and cultural deep dives. If you think your book concept would be a good fit for us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

How to submit

We have an open submissions policy, which means you don’t need to have an agent. Before submitting, please take a look through our current titles and social media pages to better understand who we are and what we’re about.

To submit send as an attachment via email to: contact [at] formybooks [dot] com. Email subject should be formatted as follows: Submissions_YourName_Date.

In the body of the email tell us about yourself! Include social links, but don’t worry this isn’t to check your follower count!

**ALL SUBMISSIONS**

Send us a pitch – a short description of what your book is about and what makes it different from the titles currently available.

For picture books let us know who your target audience is (0-5 or 5-7). We’re looking for unpublished manuscripts of 500 to 1000 words only.

For middle grade and YA novels we need a synopsis which includes a beginning, middle and end outline, along with the first 2 chapters (Arial, Size 12, double spaced).

What happens next

Our Commissioning Editor Lauren Ackie reads all the submissions that come in. She passes on to the co-directors Ebony Lyon and Curtis Ackie if she believes it's a good fit for Formy Books.

If we are interested in your book we will be in touch within eight weeks. If you don't hear from us in this time, unfortunately you have been unsuccessful. We will try to offer feedback where we can, however this won’t always be possible due to the volume of submissions and us being a new and small (albeit mighty!) team.

We cannot read any submissions that do not follow our guidelines. Submissions via DM are not accepted.