Call for Submissions
Kensington Publishing
www.kensingtonbooks.com/page.aspx/writers
Kensington is the largest family-owned publisher in New York. Adam Zacharias is the third generation of the Zacharias family to work at Kensington. They are large enough to have best-sellers on the NYT and USA Today list every week, but small enough that everyone knows the authors. They publish all genres of fiction in all formats — hard, soft, mass-market and trade paper and digital.
The company was founded in 1974 and they have been publishing romance since the 1970s. They publish all kinds of romance — contemporary, historical, paranormal, romantic suspense, erotica, gay and lesbian, African American and women’s fiction.
Kensington does promotion for every title, including a lot of online promotion through Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. They also do print ads, advanced review copies, book trailers, contests, blog tours and many other types of promotion.
The editors at Kensington accept both agented and unagented submissions, via email. Send a query with one paragraph about your book, and one paragraph about you, with your publishing history. They like an attachment of a Word document with the first three chapters. The response time varies widely.
ALL EMAILED MANUSCRIPTS WILL BE DELETED.
SUBMIT TO ONE EDITOR ONLY. From the list of editors and their areas of interest below, determine which editor would be best suited to or most interested in the type of book you are proposing. Address the submission to that editor’s attention. If an editor passes, it’s a pass for Kensington; do not re-query or re-submit to another editor.
ALLOW AT LEAST THREE MONTHS FOR RESPONSE. PLEASE DO NOT CALL THE KENSINGTON OFFICES.
By Mail:
For fiction, please send a cover letter, first three chapters, and synopsis (no more than five pages). Note that we do not publish science fiction, fantasy, poetry, or plays.
For non-fiction, send cover letter/query, including the author’s qualifications and connections relevant to the book’s content and marketing, and a summary or outline of book’s content.
All printed submissions should be typed, double-spaced, paginated, and readable. Do not bind pages together.
MATERIAL WITHOUT RETURN POSTAGE WILL BE DISCARDED. If you need material returned, you must enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope large enough to hold the submission with sufficient postage. If we may recycle your pages, enclose a letter-size, stamped, self-addressed envelope for a reply.
By E-mail:
Please send a QUERY ONLY in the body of the email.
Do not attach manuscripts or proposals to e-mail queries.
An editor will respond if he or she is interested in seeing your material based on your query. Due to the volume of submissions, editors may only respond to projects they wish to further consider.
Requested manuscripts should be Word documents unless otherwise specified, typed in 12-point font, double-spaced, and paginated. Include title and author in file name.
IF YOU DO NOT HEAR BACK ON YOUR QUERY, IT MEANS THAT YOUR PROJECT DOESN’T FIT OUR CURRENT EDITORIAL NEEDS.
Editorial Staff—Kensington and Citadel
John Scognamiglio, Editor-in-Chief of Kensington, Fiction (historical romance, women’s contemporary fiction, historical fiction, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, gay fiction and non-fiction, mysteries, suspense, mainstream fiction, young adult fiction, memoirs, erotica). Word count for mysteries is 75,000-100,000 words. jscognamiglio@kensingtonbooks.com
Michaela Hamilton, Editor-in-Chief of Citadel, Executive Editor of Kensington (nonfiction including popular culture, current events, narrative nonfiction, true crime, biography, memoir, law enforcement, pets and animals, outdoor adventure; fiction including thrillers, cozy mysteries, mainstream novels). mhamilton@kensingtonbooks.com
Alicia Condon, Editorial Director of Brava (paranormal and fantasy romance, romantic suspense, historical and contemporary romance, young adult paranormal romance of 80,000 – 100,000 words).
Alica is also acquiring for the digital first line, e-Kensington. She’s interested in books that may not fit a definite niche in print channels — cross-genre stories, etc. “I am always open to being surprised.”acondon@kensingtonbooks.com
Selena James, Executive Editor, Dafina Books (African-American fiction and nonfiction, including inspirational, young adult, romance, and pop culture). sjames@kensingtonbooks.com
Esi Sogah, Senior Editor (historical romance, paranormal romance, contemporary romance for Zebra, cozy mysteries, suspense thrillers and select women’s fiction). esogah@kensingtonbooks.com
Melissa Demarest (westerns, true crime, current events, humor, pop culture, Judaica, thrillers, military fiction and nonfiction, sports, how-to, science, world and American history, narrative nonfiction). mdemarest@kensingtonbooks.com
Mercedes Fernandez, Assistant Editor, Dafina Books (African-American and multicultural fiction, including young adult, romance and inspirational). mfernandez@kensingtonbooks.com
Peter Senftleben, Assistant Editor (mainstream and women’s fiction, mystery, suspense/thriller, urban fantasy, paranormal and contemporary romance, romantic suspense, erotic romance, gay fiction, young adult fiction, pop culture, humor, entertainment). psenftleben@kensingtonbooks.com
Martin Biro, Assistant Editor (women’s fiction, mysteries, historical fiction, thrillers, gay fiction, historical romance, young adult) mbiro@kensingtonbooks.com
