Updated March 2025: They keep updating their website, and it’s very unclear if they are still publishing new books. The review below reflects the version of the website that existed in March 2024. They do not currently have a submission guidelines and if they are still active they do not seem interested in un-agented submission.
Monarch Educational Service’s Publishing arm was founded in 2021 and bills themselves as a “boutique publishing house” and a “full-service traditional publishing company,” even though the name “educational services” implies otherwise. They focus on publishing work for middle grade readers and young adults. They also recently started an imprint, Caterpillar, that is focused on publishing books for younger readers, including picture books and early chapter books.
They focus on only publishing clean reads, and they have a detailed clean reads policy you can download here.
Over the past year they have continued to improve and update their website in an impressive way.
They are a small company but their staff has grown significantly over the last year, but based on their about us page, most of the staff are open to editorial freelance work outside of the company, which is unusual, and could lead towards a conflict of intrest.
They used to have information on their website that implied that they started out as a vanity press, but that information has been removed as part of the website re-design. They now call themselves “a full-service traditional publishing company,” in several places on the site, and the definition of traditional publishing companies are ones that do not charge.
The main landing page focuses on promoting their authors and books, which is a good sign.
Their covers really vary from professional and appealing to not very professional or appealing. Also, and I hesitate to bring this up, because I myself often make minor mistakes when it comes to grammar and spelling, but I noticed a number of minor mistakes in prominent places across their site.
Some of their books such as a A Study in Terminal by Kara Linaburg have sold fairly well for a small press, and have a fair amount of engagement on social media, etc. Since my initial review they’ve greatly streamlined the process for buying books wchich is great.
I do not think they have a distributor beyond Ingram, but don’t have detailed information to that end. They are currently open to submissions in the following areas for middle grade and young adult books unless otherwise noted:
To learn more, please visit their website here. They plan to reopen to submissions in summer 2025.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 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.
