Written by January 20th, 2022

Cardinal Rule Press: Accepting Manuscript Queries

Updated September 8th 2025: They appear to only accept submissions via invitation only now. More details here.

They are respected children’s picture book publisher only open to submissions during certain times of year.

They hope to empower children by telling meaningful stories aimed at 4-11 year olds. The work they publish is realistic fiction which they describe as “a genre made up of stories that could happen in our world and society.”

That means they only consider work where characters are human beings living beings that are living in places that could be real, or are in fact real. Magic does not exist in real fiction. You can see work they’ve previously published here.

They consider manuscripts up to 1,000 words in length.

They only accept emailed submissions. They have specific guidelines that you should read in full here. Their most recent submission period ended January 31st 2024. You can subscribe at their website to be notified when they reopened.


Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript SubmissionsSubmit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2021 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.

She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

Are you ready to submit?

Please fill out this short form before continuing.

Why this form is required.

Have you revised your manuscript at least 3 times?


 

We Send You Publishers Seeking Submissions.

Sign up for our free e-magazine and we will send you reviews of publishers seeking short stories, poetry, essays, and books.

Subscribe now and we'll send you a free copy of our book Submit, Publish, Repeat

Slashic Horror Press

Slashic Horror Press

Slashic Horror Press is an LGBTQ+ horror press. They welcome submissions from allies, but LGBTQ+ voices come first and foremost. They also state that “if you only have a gay character on page 50 and they don’t do anything except re-affirm stereotypes… then you aren’t an ally. ” They are only interested in work that feature…

Dreamsphere Books

Dreamsphere Books

Dreamsphere Books publishes fantasy, science fiction, horror, thriller, and mystery books. They focus on publishing genre work, but are not interested in YA romance or adult romance as other imprints, Deep Hearts YA and Deep Desire focus on these genres. Dreamsphere is an imprint of Story Perfect Books which you can learn more about here….

CKN Christian Publishing

CKN Christian Publishing

CKN Christian Publishing is an imprint of Wolfpack Publishing. CKN is currently open to unsolicited manuscripts in Clean Fiction. They are open to the following clean genres but prefer series to stand-alone novels: Romance, Historical Fiction, Western (including romance and non-romance), Amish, Mystery (all sub-genres, including cozy), Post-apocalyptic, Thriller. They do not share their definition…

Wild Heart Books

Wild Heart Books

This small press focuses on publishing “historical romance novels set prior to 1950 and woven with the truth of God’s love”. You can see their staff page here. They were founded by an established Christian historical romance writer. They really focus on their niche, and seem to be successful within that context. A number of…