The Innovation Press | Writing for Kids (While Raising Them)

by Asia Citro, M. Ed, Publisher

Thank you so much, Tara, for the chance to introduce your blog readers to The Innovation Press!

We are a Seattle-area children’s publisher that’s a bit new on the scene. In fact, this year is our first “big” year; we’ve got ten children’s titles coming out in 2017.

As I’m sure you have all discovered, small presses tend to have a “type” when it comes to the sort of books they’re looking for and we are no exception. Right now we’re focused on the K-5 market, but anything goes as long as it fits in that range—picture books, chapter books, and middle grade submissions are all great. If you take a peek at our titles, you’ll start to get a sense for the sort of books we’re after. As a former classroom teacher, I have a particular affinity for books that teach in some way. We love titles that promote creativity, diversity, laughter, and learning. If you take a close look, you’ll find that almost all of our 2017 titles are hybrid texts (a mix between fiction and nonfiction).

Though we are newer, we have international distribution, so our books are in stores, shops, libraries, and schools all over the world. We also have foreign rights representation (seeing our books printed in foreign languages is the coolest!). Oh, and we’re a member of the Children’s Book Council as well as an SCBWI PAL Publisher. We also believe in making our books available to all children, so for every ten books we sell, we donate one to First Book (an amazing nonprofit that pairs educators and students in low-income districts with books).

We pay an advance as well as royalties to our authors. In addition, we offer a lot of publicity help and support and we involve authors as much as possible in the decision-making process for things related to their book (such as illustrator, title, etc). If you have something you think might be a great fit, we’d love to see it! You can find our full submission guidelines here.

Thanks for getting in touch, Asia. While I have not worked with The Innovation Press personally, this new publisher looks like an excellent opportunity for aspiring kidlit authors.

If you have questions about The Innovation Press, please leave them in the comments and Asia will answer them.