Manuscript Submissions

Welcome to Ruqaya’s Bookshelf, a growing publishing company based in Canada. Our aim is to enrich your kids’ libraries by publishing children’s books with diverse Muslim protagonists.

If you are interested in submitting your manuscript to us, please read our guidelines carefullyManuscripts that do not follow the guidelines below will not be reviewed:

  • Our focus is advanced picture books (650-850 words), and chapter books (7,000-10,000 words). Stories that do not adhere to this word count will not be considered.
  • We only publish stories with Muslim protagonists. We welcome and encourage you to write about characters from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
  • We accept manuscripts from writers worldwide.
  • Submissions cannot have been previously published, in print or online.
  • If you are submitting multiple stories at once, please include them in one word document, attached through the submissions form below. Please limit submissions to three stories at a time.
  • We aim to publish stories that are interesting to both Muslim and non-Muslim audiences, but we are focused on catering to the Muslim community that has been underserved for decades!
  • We are interested in really good, genuine stories about Muslim kids doing cool things. This means before you submit your manuscript, make sure something interesting is actually occurring in the story (i.e. there should be some kind of external or internal conflict that the character has to resolve).
  • We love to incorporate Islamic themes while simultaneously avoiding overly-instructive works with too many Arabic/Islamic terms.
  • Do not send illustrations or stories that have already been storyboarded. 

To submit a story, please fill out the following form and attach your manuscript. 

  • Picture book manuscripts are to be submitted in full.
  • For chapter books manuscripts, please submit only one chapter (maximum 1500 words) along with an outline of the book. If you submit the full manuscript, it will not be reviewed.

We will attempt to review every manuscript sent to us. If you do not hear back from us within 6-8 weeks of your email, please assume we will not be pursuing your submission.

We ask that you do not contact us for updates on your manuscript because we are not equipped with the staff to individually respond to each submission. Rest assured that if we are interested in publishing your work, we will be in touch!

Thanks, and happy writing!

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