Our 2021 Call for Submissions

Hi Jeanne, we’re so glad to hear that! As you’ll note in our post above, our submissions will open on 1 May 2021 and the submission form will be provided on our Submissions page, which is linked to in the blog above (if you click on “view submission details”).

Good Day

I would like to find out if stories that are African centered will be considered for publication?

Hi Charlotte, certainly! We would love to read African-centered manuscripts. They would ideally be poised in a way that they can still be enjoyed by international readers, though, as our focus as a publishing house is in growing local authors internationally.

Hello there!
Is Imagnary House looking for submissions in Afrikaans, and more specifically, for fantasy?

Hi Henlu,

We are accepting submissions in Afrikaans, and fantasy novels are part of our current criteria for submissions. So yes to all!

However, if possible, please do try to write your author biography and synopsis in English (not a necessity, but preferred). This is only so that our entire panel can review those elements, while our Afrikaans Editor can review the manuscript itself.

Kind regards,
Imagnary House

Hi, would you consider a YA contemporary, coming of age book? Or is it strictly sci fi and fantasy YA you consider?

I write horror and paranormal so does this mean I can’t submit my manuscript?

@Ramsha and @Zethembiso Hlongwane Unfortunately at this time we are not considering outside of the SFF genres for young adult novels. But we will update our submission guidelines as soon as this changes.

Hi, is there a recommended or approximate word count range or limit for the children’s picture book submissions please? This is a query related to the call for submissions due on 30 September 2021. Thank you!

Dear Sirs, I write about young friends who buy an old house outside Neslpruit. According to the squatters they will not go near it as it has bad spirits in the house. There are skeletons, fully clothed in Boer War Uniforms in the basement as well as gold bars, antiquated whisky etc. Jason Ambrose has much on his hands when a crooked Estate agent gets involved. One of his friends is a Vet who tends to a baby elephant in the Kruger Park. They have other problems with rogue rural people with sharpened teeth who pelt the house with stones. There are many adversaries to overcome and unusual happenings. It is a fast moving book between 40,000 and 50,000 words. I look forward to your comments

@Shireen Mukadam There is no real average word count that we would hold any submission to for a picture book, but it should be able to be broken down into 32-40 fully illustrated pages.

@Nanette Spurway An interesting concept, although unfortunately we do not consider submissions made in blog comments. You will need to submit through our official form when our submission period is open.

Do you accept sesotho manuscript?I have short story for children 3000 words

@Thabang Tsolo We unfortunately don’t yet accept manuscripts in Sesotho, only for the reason that we don’t yet have editors able to review manuscripts in this language yet. But we are working on opening up to more African languages soon and will update our community as soon as this happens.

Hi there.

Whatis your ideal word count for a YA Fantsay novel?

When do submissions open this year?

@Koketso Maropefela – We don’t have an ideal word count for fantasy novels… but a range that we often see books published in is between 70,000 – 150,000 words for YA (that being said, many books go up to 300,000 words). Submissions are open every year between 1 May and 30 September… so on the 1st of May we will open the floodgates.