Fonetti submission guidelines for authors

Here at Fonetti our team is always looking for new and exciting children’s stories to bring to life. If you have something you’d like to see turned into a Listening Book, have a read of our submission guidelines and send it our way. 

The possibilities are endless when it comes to children’s books, and that’s why we love doing what we do. We especially look forward to reading about stories that fight injustice. And sea monsters.

What we aren’t particularly looking for right now is classic fairy tales and Aesop’s fables. We want you to let your imagination run wild.

Our books vary in length. They can be anywhere between 300 – 3,000 words. We recommend submitting between 2 and 5 A4 pages.

All manuscripts must be submitted electronically – unfortunately due to the volume of submissions we can’t accept paper copies, neither can we return original documents.

We don’t expect every submission to be perfect. But we do want each story published on Fonetti to be the best it can be. We take our responsibility as a publisher and platform, recommended by the Department for Education’s Hungry Little Minds Campaign, seriously. That’s why we take care to ensure our stories are ethically and morally suitable for our readers. Although we don’t offer literary appraisals, we will offer editorial feedback if we are interested in publishing your work.

We welcome submissions from published and unpublished authors including unsolicited manuscripts and especially encourage under-represented writers to submit. We don’t take payment from any author and only publish titles we feel will enrich the lives of our readers.

Some things to keep in mind

• Our stories will be read by children, not to children. Avoid using uncommon or ‘difficult’ words where you can
• There’s no need to provide illustrations for your work. If there are any images you’d like us to see, please do include them as a separate attachment
• Stories with a lot of dialogue can be difficult to illustrate
• Children love humour and repetition. They also love rhyme. Although we welcome rhyming text our readers span many countries and continents so please be conscious that all rhyme must be obvious
• You don’t have to split your story into pages and spreads, we’ll do this for you with our illustrators. Whilst you’re welcome to do so, please note we may make some changes.

Payment:

We pay all of our creatives because we value the work you do. However, please keep in mind that we are still growing, and can be restricted when it comes to negotiations. 

Please note for the time being we are not operating on a royalties model. Auris Tech will own the rights to each book. Please do get in touch with any questions.

To submit:

Send your manuscript to submissions@fonetti.com as a .docx. 

This must be double spaced in 12pt font, with your name and page number in the top right corner.

Include your full name, a short synopsis of the story (two sentences) and a brief description of your writing experience to date.

Please let us know if you’ve sent your manuscript to an agent for representation or if another publisher has shown an interest in your work.

Children under the age of 18 are allowed to submit with parental consent.

We aim to respond within 2-3 weeks but please bear with us if we take a little longer – we reply to every submission.

We look forward to reading your work. Happy writing!

To download the app from the App Store for your child simply click below and receive 3 months free 

Fonetti is offering 3 months free access to all children throughout the current lockdown period.

Download the app from the App Store and receive 3 months free!

As part of the Hungry Little Minds Campaign Fonetti won the approval of the Department of Education as a recommended App for the practice of reading for primary aged children.