Serendipity at Each Page Turn
We are sorry to write that we have no more openings for internships this year. Wishing all you students much joy and learning during your chosen ones.
Pickleyolksubmissions@gmail.com is where we accept manuscript submissions. We’d love to hear from illustrators, too, on the same ID. Please do not use any other of our email IDs mentioned elsewhere on the website for this. You will hear back from us within 3 months.
If you’d like to connect with us for an internship, please drop us a mail at pickleyolkbooks@gmail.com.
A quick note for the authors:
- Pickle Yolk Books publishes ONLY children’s picture books. Please do not mail us short stories, graphic novels, and chapters from chapter books.
Aside I: While our books are created keeping children in mind as the primary consumers, we do not tire of shouting from rooftops that picture books can be enjoyed by humans of all ages; adults, please give them a chance. Buy or borrow them for yourself, buy them as gifts for your friends, read them to discover the entire microcosm of life, our joys, emotions, fears, insecurities, learnings, et al, that they capture between their covers.
- The ideal word count for us is under-500. 400 is a sweet-spot. Anything above 800 is a no-no.
Aside II: While your illustration notes do not add to the word count mentioned above, please keep them to an absolute minimum when submitting your manuscript. None is perfect.
3. Formatting basics that work best for us:
- Times Roman, size 12 or 14
- No formatted indents
- No page breaks – just let your text flow without adding any page numbers in between sentences.
- As an extension to the point above, please do not send us your story across a 20-page document with one sentence on a page.
- Send the file as an attachment.
- When we receive a submission, we jump straight to the attachment because we are hungry for a manuscript that makes our heart go bippoty-bop. We usually skip all the lovely things mentioned in a nicely crafted query letter. An informal short-and-sweet ‘Dear/Hi, Sharing this with you’ works well. If we fall in love with the words/story/concept/thought behind it, we’ll already have done our YIPPEE! cartwheels before hitting the reply button within minutes of having read your story.
Aside III: While we do our best to respond to all the submissions, at times, we do miss out on some. But that does not mean we haven’t read it. As you may have gathered from point 4, if we’ve loved your manuscript, you WILL hear from us. Therefore, if you haven’t, chances are that we are having to let go of it.
Aside IV: We usually skip the impressive resume attachments, too. For us, it’s ONLY the story that counts.
A quicker note for illustrators, and for those seeking internships with us:
- Please do share at least one weblink in the email where we can see some/all of your work.
- As with the manuscript submissions (read point 4 above), we skip lengthy emails and the attached resumes.
- Please don’t attach heavy files.
A breezy note for parents keen on seeing their children publish their first book with us:
- We do not publish books written or illustrated by children.
- If you still do happen to connect, we will be happy to direct you to other publications who take on children as their authors (though, before that, we may do our best to dissuade you from rushing into having your child’s first book out too soon
)
We look forward to hearing from a whole bunch of you! Until then, let’s keep digging into picture books.