The Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency is always looking out for exciting projects by debut authors in both adult and children’s books, but out of the enormous amount we see, we select very few. On occasion we do make detailed editorial suggestions and comments but we only do so when we see real promise in the work.
We do not charge a reading fee.
We endeavour to reply to all submissions within six weeks, but during seasonal busy periods we may take longer; please bear with us. We prefer not to take telephone calls about submissions.
Of course we are very selective, but the office lights up with excitement when we find something wonderful.
We request submissions by email only. Email the material to either Caroline Sheldon or Penny Holroyde. Please do not send it to both of us!
Use the subject line “SUBMISSION/[TITLE OF WORK]/[NAME OF AUTHOR]”. This will ensure it’s not accidentally deleted as spam.
Just as if you were writing a letter of introduction, include full information about yourself and your work in your introductory email. Please attach the first three chapters of work and a brief synopsis (two pages maximum). To make sure we can access your work, please send text attachments as a Word document, and any illustrator artwork as jpeg files.
Name the attachments accordingly so it is clear to us what we are looking at. If your work is shorter than 10,000 words (e.g. shorter books for children) attach the whole typescript. If you write picture book texts and have more than one available, you can attach up to three.
