Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.
A: children's fiction
Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?
A: Marble Press publishes highly selected books for young readers. We strive to provide child-friendly stories that emphasize different aspects like social-emotional learning, STEM and improving literacy skills. We also plan to publish "craft" books. Marble Press loves early-reader and middle-grade graphic novels.
Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?
A: We have a lot of favorites. If you look at the books published by MP, you will get a picture of our taste.
Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?
A: Marble Press only publishes highly curated materials. We mostly accept agency submissions, but occasionally we publish from unrepresented authors too.
Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?
A: Please read our submission page carefully.
Always send the full manuscript and hone and shorten your pitch. Name and label thing correctly. Your manuscript will be downloaded and get lost if it's named "final 543" or "Marblepress sub"
Also, know your age group and genre.
Q: Describe the ideal submission.
A: Read the submission page for the details.
Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?
A: We do read the pitches and the cover letters, but the most important part of your submission is the manuscript.
We'd love to know the relevant things about you.
Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?
A: We start with the forst 5-10 pages. If it's intriguing we read on till the end. If it's not it gets rejected.
Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?
A: After the editor reads a submission and finds it interesting s/he might ask for a few rounds of revisions. If the revisions are satisfying the editor brings the story to the acquisition meeting. More editors and the Marble Press Team reads it too. We discuss the MS at the meeting and make a decision.
The decision can be, 1) more revisions are requested, 2) we offer a contract 3) we reject it.
Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?
A: After the editor reads a submission and finds it interesting s/he might ask for a few rounds of revisions. If the revisions are satisfying the editor brings the story to the acquisition meeting. More editors and the Marble Press Team reads it too. We discuss the MS at the meeting and make a decision.
The decision can be, 1) more revisions are requested, 2) we offer a contract 3) we reject it.
Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?
A: Marble Press only accepts electronic submissions. We appreciate that, for sending bigger files, you use a link to your dropbox/googledrive etc, instead of attaching it.
We do not use POD we print our high-quality and beautiful books with Offset.
We avoid AI as an editing or art source as we prefer human creativity.
Marble Press embraces modern technologies as much as possible. We are present on the main social media pages and YouTube as well.
Q: How much do you edit an accepted piece prior to publication?
A: It depends on the submission. It can be a minor copy-editing level, and we may get a draft which with the agreement of the author we transform into something else. Like a draft for one picture book, becomes two books, or maybe we think it's a better fit for an early reader. These bigger transformations are rare. Most of the time what we acquire is already 80-90% ready.
Q: Do you nominate work you've published for any national or international awards?
A: Yes, we nominate and send our books to various awards.
We also use PR and marketing tools to get bigger publicity for our books. We try to produce book trailers, and interviews with authors and illustrators. We collaborate with the authors to produce free Activity Kits for teachers/librarians and caregivers. We attend national and international book conventions.