Lerner Publishing Group - Call for Fantasy MG/YA Manuscripts

[The Bluestocking]

The Lerner Publishing Group is sending out a call for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fantasy manuscripts:

Open Call for Submissions: Middle Grade and YA Fantasy Manuscripts
https://lernerbooks.blog/2017/07/open-call-middle-grade-ya-fantasy-novels.html
The submissions period is from 4 August 2017 - 1st September 2017.

Here's the main website for the Lerner Publishing Group:

Nonfiction and Fiction Books and Digital Content for Children Grades K-12
https://www.lernerbooks.com/Pages/Home.aspx
And here's the "About" page of Lerner Books for more info about the company:

Nonfiction and Fiction Books and Digital Content for Children Grades K-12

 

[Martin Gill]

So what makes something "YA"? I've got a complete fantasy manuscript that wasn't written as YA, but at least one of my test readers likened it to YA, and of the three POV characters two are teenagers (ish - I'm deliberately vague with their ages, but it's about their coming of age). There's some swearing, but 5 mins on search and replace would change that. There's some dark themes, but no darker than Hunger Games.

Are there rules?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

So what makes something "YA"? I've got a complete fantasy manuscript that wasn't written as YA, but at least one of my test readers likened it to YA, and of the three POV characters two are teenagers (ish - I'm deliberately vague with their ages, but it's about their coming of age). There's some swearing, but 5 mins on search and replace would change that. There's some dark themes, but no darker than Hunger Games.

Are there rules?

Not really. YA can be dark. It can have swearing (although that might limit the market a little). The coming of age story is a big theme in it. You're worth a punt, I reckon.