“I have an idea … an outline … a few chapters … a complete manuscript. Would NAEYC be interested in publishing it?”
Before you send us anything to review, familiarize yourself with the kinds of projects we publish. Read our Publications Program FAQs. Look at the books NAEYC has already published by browsing our catalog or Web site, visiting your local college library or bookstore, or purchasing copies of your own.
Determine whether there already are books in print that cover your same topic and duplicate your same approach. (Locate other early childhood publishers by searching the Web, visiting your local college bookstore or library, or talking to colleagues about the resources they use.) If similar books are already out there, you’ll need to be ready to explain to us how yours would be different or better.
NAEYC books are closely identified with the Association and seen as reflecting NAEYC’s positions. Readers look to NAEYC for professional materials that reflect the best current knowledge in the early childhood field and that are consistent with the Association’s mission and the principles and practices it advocates, such as developmentally appropriate practice and respect for all children and families.
Send Us an Inquiry First
If your research reveals a niche your book could fill, then send an inquiry to the NAEYC Books Department by mail or email. We suggest you send the inquiry early in your thinking about the project. Exploring issues of topic, tone, and audience before you take your idea too far saves both of us time, and makes it more likely that you might develop a manuscript that NAEYC would publish.
In your inquiry, provide us with some preliminary material:
- outline or table of contents
- description of the project
Your narrative description of the project will let us sample your writing, but if you have others (e.g., copy of a published article, link to a Web site you’ve posted to), you could send that along too.
Give us a few weeks to respond. If the fit is promising, we will invite you to submit a formal proposal for review. The instructions below describe how to prepare such a proposal.
Prepare a proposal letter
A proposal letter is your chance to get us as excited about the project as you are! Tell us:
- What will this book be about? What will readers learn by reading it?
- Who are your potential readers (be as specific as you can)? How would this book meet their specific needs?
- Will those potential readers find publications (by NAEYC or other early childhood publishers) already on the market similar to yours in both topic and approach? If so, which are those other publications? How would yours be different or better?
- How will your project address NAEYC’s mission and the principles and practices we advocate (e.g., developmentally appropriate practice)?
- What will your book be based on: the research literature? your own experience or direct observation? a combination?
- Have the suggestions, activities, or strategies you will propose been tested in the field? What evidence do you have of their effectiveness?
- How long will your manuscript be when it is finished? (Estimate in total double-spaced pages or total words.) If you are submitting a complete manuscript now, what is its actual length?
- When you imagine what the finished publication might look like, would any special design or manufacturing be required?
- NAEYC tries to enliven its publications with text elements such as real-life vignettes and examples. Will your submitted manuscript include any of these? If so, will you be their author, or are you planning to reprint material from another source (e.g., a book or Web site)?
- We typically add illustrations and/or photographs as needed from our extensive image library, but sometimes authors have their own photographs or children’s work available. Will your submitted manuscript include any illustrations, photographs, figures, and samples of children’s work? If so, will you be their creator, or are you planning to use images from another source (e.g., an artist or photographer, reprinted from a book or Web site)? … For safety, do not enclose any original artwork or photographs now with your proposal; instead, just describe the images you plan to include or send photocopies of them.
- What expertise or credentials do you and any coauthors bring to this specific project?
- The contact information (mailing address, daytime phone and fax, email) for the person we should correspond with about this project.
Enclose a writing sample
With your proposal letter, please also provide the following:
- Cover page—the title you are proposing, and the names of all authors exactly as they should appear (spelling, order).
- Detailed outline or table of contents—describe the topics that each chapter or section will cover. For a book project, list the major subheads inside each chapter.
- A portion of the content—
- For a book project: At least three completed chapters. The chapters you send need not be the book’s first three (i.e., not Chapters 1, 2, and 3); instead, what is most helpful is for you to send selected chapters that collectively give us a picture of what the whole book will be like (chapters that sample each major type of material in the book). If you have already written more than three chapters or even the entire manuscript, please go ahead and send us all the material you have ready.
- For a booklet or brochure project: A significant portion, sufficient for us to get a sense of the content and your writing.
NAEYC offers guidance on writing and formatting in 1. Style Guide.
Please double-space everything, including any references, notes, and tables. Number all pages. In anticipation of the manuscript being sent for blind review, please use the names of the authors on the cover page only, not anywhere else in the manuscript (e.g., not in headers or footers).
Supply your proposal letter and writing sample on paper or electronically. We prefer electronically because we can send your proposal to reviewers via email. Make sure you keep copies of everything for safety.
One Publisher at a Time
As a small publisher, NAEYC cannot afford to invest staff time in reviewing a proposal that at the same time is being considered elsewhere. If your project is already under consideration by another publisher, please do not submit it to NAEYC unless you first withdraw it from consideration there or until the other publisher rejects it.
While your proposal is being reviewed by NAEYC, please don’t submit it elsewhere.
Review
NAEYC editors make decisions regarding review, revision, acceptance, and publication.
First, your proposal will receive a preliminary in-house review by the NAEYC Books Department. This initial review typically takes several weeks. We will contact you as soon as we come to a decision about next steps.
A proposal that makes it through the initial staff review is sent for blind review to experts in the early childhood field. Because these peer reviewers are volunteers, it may take six weeks or longer for NAEYC to receive their feedback.
Sometimes it's Revise and Resubmit
Some proposals we accept or reject after initial reviews.
Others we encourage the author to revise, incorporating our feedback and the feedback of any outside reviewers. Such encouragement means that we believe the project has potential. An author who revises and resubmits is not guaranteed an acceptance. Some authors go through several rounds of review-revision-review before we make a final decision.
A Decision
If we accept your proposal, we will send you a written confirmation inviting you to submit a complete Manuscript Package (more on that below). Publication is always conditional on our (1) obtaining a final, edited manuscript that we judge to be complete and acceptable in form and content and (2) receiving a signed Publication/Author Agreement from each author.
- Our standard Publication/Author Agreement grants to NAEYC the exclusive right to publish your manuscript and transfers your copyright in the manuscript to the Association.
If we reject your proposal, we will send you a written notice. Rejected materials are returned only if you request it and provide an addressed return envelope.
If your proposal is accepted on the basis of a partial manuscript, then now will be the time to get writing! If your manuscript is already complete, then the next step is to prepare your Manuscript Package for submission to editing/production. For help, see our author guides:
- Style Guide: Writing for NAEYC lists the set of style rules and preferences we follow during the editing stages of production.
- Being Accepted describes your prerogatives and responsibilities as author, and ours as publisher.
- Sending the Manuscript Package lists the components of a package that is ready for editing and production (text, artwork/photos, permissions, etc.).
- Stages in Editing and Proofing covers in chart form each of the steps required to turn a manuscript into a book.
- Obtaining Permissions describes when you need permission to include in your manuscript material created by someone else, and how to obtain that permission.
For help in preparing an inquiry or proposal, please contact:
Melissa Edwards
Editorial Associate, Books
202-232-8777 x8847 or (tollfree) 800-424-2460 x8847
medwards@naeyc.org
Download Submitting a Proposal (PDF).
