Submission Guidelines

These are the types of books we like to see.

Thanks for your interest in Nappaland Literary – and for taking time to read these submission guidelines before sending us your work. (Whew.)

To begin, please be aware that we require a short query before we’ll look at your full proposal or manuscript. If you don’t know what that means, look it up online before you contact us, because you’re not ready to submit anything yet. (Also, notice that we ask for a short query, so try to keep it at 250 words or less. Thanks.)

Next, please be aware that NLA is not a “general interest” agency. We’ve targeted a few, specific book categories to represent. If you send us anything that’s not in these categories, well, that’s like delivering auto parts to a guy who ordered pizza. It just wastes everybody’s time.

OK, here are the details you’re looking for:

What We Represent (in alphabetical order):

Family/ Parenting
Historical Nonfiction
Literary Fiction
Literary Nonfiction
Pop Culture
Religious Inspiration
Suspense Fiction
Women’s Nonfiction
Young Adult (fiction and nonfiction)

Yep, that’s it. We’re sorry if your preferred book category isn’t on this list but, well, remember the part about “NLA is not a ‘general interest’ agency…”? After all, submission guidelines mean something to us. Thanks for understanding.

What we Definitely Do NOT Represent (so please don’t send them to us)

Children’s books
Memoirs
Graphic novels
Romance
Erotica
Political issues
Anything about cats.

Seriously, don’t send us this stuff. Don’t think, “Well, they’ve never seen MY romance novel” or “Hey, my take on politics will win them over” or you know, “Who doesn’t like cats?” (we don’t). If you send anything in any of these categories, don’t expect to hear from us. You’ve just ignored our submission guidelines, so why would we respond? If you’re still toying with the idea of sending us something on this second list then: Just … don’t.

The Review Process at NLA

Here’s how our review process works at Nappaland Literary:

First, we read every query sent to us. Every single one.
You can send us a query about your book through the Contact page on this website.
Be aware that we only respond to those queries that have interest to us. That means you’ll only hear from us if we want to see more.
If you haven’t heard from us within 30 days, it means we’ve decided to decline the opportunity to represent. Sorry.
If we decline to represent, we hope you make us look really silly by publishing to great acclaim and riches through another literary agency that’s obviously smarter and prettier than we are anyway.

Again, thanks for you interest. We wish you only the best in your writing career.