Submissions Guidelines

Are you interested in having us publish your book? Here is a quick outline of what we're looking for.

• First and most important, we only publish books that are intended for English-speaking people who are learning to read Chinese. Our books are graded readers, which means they are written with a limited Chinese vocabulary, and we also try to avoid extremely long sentences and confusing or convoluted grammar.  We do not publish books that use an unrestricted vocabulary, no matter how good they might be. Our easiest book, Twenty Three Cats, uses only 101 Chinese words. At the other extreme, the later books in our 31-book Journey to the West series use over 1,000 words. Our "sweet spot" is in the 250-400 word range. Usually a book's vocabulary is based on one of the standard HSK vocabulary lists (HSK1, HSK2, and so on), though of course every book uses some words that are not in the HSK list. Those new words are defined in the places where they are first used in the book.

• Second, our fiction books always include a pinyin transliteration and an English translation. So your book must include at least an English translation. If you don't have a pinyin transliteration, don't worry, we can create that easily enough.

• Third, we try to make sure that our books are of interest to people of all ages. It's true that we have published a few books dealing with kittens, dragons and hedgehogs, but for the most part we try to publish books with serious themes that can be read and enjoyed by both kids and adults.

• And fourth and finally, our books are usually based on Chinese classic stories. We do not publish books that have a superficial contemporary story line (for example, "a teenager goes to Taiwan for a summer exchange program"). We try to make sure that the book has some depth to it, in terms of culture, story line, and overall writing style.

Please make sure you understand these criteria before contacting us with a book idea or manuscript.  We strongly suggest that you take a close look at our most two popular fiction books, Rise of the Monkey King and Mulan: Woman Warrior. They will give you a good idea of what a successful Imagin8 Press book looks like.

If you would like to submit a query letter and/or writing sample, please email us at info@imagin8press.com.