Submissions

Welcome Writers!

Thank you for considering submitting your manuscript to Shelves of Shalom Publishing, the fiction imprint of The Unexpected Cosmology. We are a small, royalty-paying publisher geared towards the Torah-keeping community. Unlike the mainstream guys who shy away from unique or “conspiracy” novels, we cherish those tales, so query us your “out there” stories. Precedence will be placed on manuscripts featuring the Torah or Torah-observance; however, we will consider Christian or secular works that follow our guidelines.

(If you are non-fiction writer with story to share, please visit our parent company, The Unexpected Cosmology, and view their submission guidelines.)

Guidelines:

  • All genes and sub-genres of fiction will be considered.
  • We accept both novels (50K-150K words) and novellas (10K-49K words.) 
  • We are only seeking Adult, NA, YA, MG titles at this time. (No children’s literature, picture books, screenplays, or poetry)
  • Writing that contains excessive vulgar language, horrifically graphic violence, detailed rape depictions, and/or explicit on-page love scenes will be rejected. These things may be mentioned and implied in a manuscript but keep the extreme details “off screen.” (Think PG-13) 
  • Although we are happy to work with authors in edit rounds to produce a fabulous book, unpolished manuscripts requiring excessive edits and rewrites will not be considered. 
  • Do not query a partially completed manuscript or an idea. Finish writing your story before querying! 

Submissions:

Please read our submission policy carefully. Queries and submissions not following our policy will be rejected. 

It all starts with a query letter! To have your manuscript considered for publication, please email a finely tuned query letter pasted into the body of an email. No attachments please. We will not open query emails with attachments. 

Query letters should be one page in length and contain…

  • genre and word count of manuscript.
  • a one sentence “hook”.
  • target audience for you story. 
  • 2-3 paragraphs describing the manuscript (think back cover copy.)
  • brief author bio and author contact information.
  • the first 25 pages of your manuscript.  

If your query letter sparks our interest, we will email you with instructions on submitting your full book proposal and/or full manuscript. Do not email your manuscript unless instructed to by an editor. We make every effort to reply to all query letters. If you do not hear from us after 8 weeks from query letter submission, please email.

Email queries to: [email protected]

(For non-fiction submissions, please visit The Unexpected Cosmology.)