Submissions

SUBMISSIONS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED.

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Please review ALL submissions guidelines on this page BEFORE submitting your manuscript. If you are interested in submitting a written piece for our blog, contact us here, including your name and a pitch for your content.

General

We at Josha Publishing pride ourselves on publishing stories that inspire, encourage, and empower readers in a variety of ways. If you haven’t already, please check out our published fiction and nonfiction books to get a sense of the type of material we’re looking for. While that may be accomplished with a variety of genres, we are particularly interested in the following:

  • Memoirs (coming-of-age, personal, transformational)
  • Short stories (collections)
  • Essays (collections)
  • Fiction (women’s fiction, domestic fiction, autobiographical fiction, romantic fiction—provided it is not also one of our prohibited categories listed below)

We are not currently accepting science fiction or children’s books. Please check back in the future.

Under no circumstances will we consider the following:

  • Formula fiction
  • Erotica
  • Fan fiction

We also do not consider previously published material, any material with gratuitous or excessive sexual or violent content, or anything discriminatory in nature.

Please only submit one manuscript at a time, and only submit a query for manuscripts that are complete.

Formatting

All attachments provided should follow these guidelines:

  • File type must be Microsoft Word
  • Times New Roman font, size 12, double-spaced
  • All margins should be no less than ½ inch and no greater than 1.25 inches
  • Paper color should be white, font color black
  • Chapters should begin on their own page (refer to tutorial here for how to insert a page break)
  • First line of every new paragraph should be indented

Additionally, full manuscript submissions must use first line indent setting, not tabs (i.e., the tab key on the keyboard). Refer to the tutorial here for how to adjust this setting. If your manuscript is already completed, you may select all content in your document and expand the paragraph grouping on your ribbon, then follow the remaining instructions in the tutorial.

Queries

All queries should go to submissions@joshapublishing.com. Please begin your subject line with Query – {Manuscript Title} – {Genre}.

We like to see well-written, concise letters. We do not open unsolicited attachments. Please include the following information in the body of your email:

  1. Legal name
  2. Pen name (if you have one)
  3. Manuscript title
  4. Manuscript genre
  5. Short synopsis (3-5 sentences that strongly convey your storyline and pique our interest)
  6. Professional bio
  7. Relevant experience (this includes writing experience as well as any relevant life experience that qualifies you to write about your topic)
  8. Social media handle(s)
  9. Website (if you have one)
  10. If your manuscript is part of a series, indicate this and include how many books will be in your series, with a very short (1-3 sentences) synopsis of the series as a whole
  11. Anything else you think is relevant that we should know when considering your manuscript (please keep this short and to the point)

Note that with the exception of (9) website and (11) additional information, all items listed are required for consideration.

Post-submission

We will respond to every submission. If you have not received a response within 60 days, please send us a follow-up email with subject line FOLLOW UP: Query – {Manuscript Title} – {Genre} and a brief message, including the date you submitted your query.

If, based on your query, we believe your manuscript may be consistent with our publishing goals, we will request a detailed synopsis as well as the first 50 pages of your manuscript (if the chapter ends a few pages later, please go ahead and include the extra pages to that natural break). Again, please allow up to 60 days for us to review and respond. If it has been more than 60 days, please send up a follow-up email with subject line FOLLOW UP: Partial – {Manuscript Title} – {Genre} and a brief message, including the date you submitted your additional materials.

After reviewing additional materials, we may request your full manuscript. For a full review, this may take up to 6 months before you receive a response; please be patient. If after 6 months you have not received a response, please send a follow-up email with subject line FOLLOW UP: Full – {Manuscript Title} – {Genre} and a brief message, including the date you submitted your full manuscript.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you still have questions, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page. If you don’t see your question there, please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help.