Daffydowndilly Press

Daffydowndilly Press publishes poetry collections for children, written by adults. Please submit 30 to 45 pages of poetry.

All Daffydowndilly submissions should be suitable for children aged 12 or younger. Each poem in the collection should be targeted to the same age group. We prefer rhyming poetry but are open to free verse.

Submissions to Daffydowndilly may include drawings or pictures in the manuscript, as long as the author has the rights to publish those images. If you do not have images but want them, you must obtain the images and the rights to publish them before sending us your submission. We are unable to hire an artist or provide the images for you.

How to Submit

First, carefully review our general guidelines for manuscript submissions.

By sending work to us, you are agreeing to abide by our guidelines, including those regarding copyrighted work, AI use, and sensitive content.

Submissions should be emailed to kelsay.karen@gmail.com with DAFFYDOWNDILLY MANUSCRIPT as the subject line. Messages with other subject lines may be marked as spam by our email filters. If submissions with other subject lines do get through, they will not receive priority in our queue, since it may take us longer to find them in our inbox.

Include a brief cover letter in the body of your email with your name, address, phone number, and PayPal receipt number. If you have published with us before or know someone who has, we encourage you to mention that.

Attach two Word documents (not PDFs) to your email: your manuscript and your marketing plan.

What to Include in a Marketing Plan

Your marketing plan does not need to be in any particular format and need not include a sales quota. We are looking for a realistic description of how you plan to engage with marketing your book before and after publication.

In your marketing plan, we encourage you to mention specific venues where you intend to give readings, organizations you attend where you might promote your work, social media accounts you have and that you intend to use to engage with readers, and so on.

If you previously published a poetry collection, please mention how you engaged with marketing it and what (if anything) you plan to do differently with marketing your next collection.

How to Format Your Manuscript

Include these elements, in this order:

  • The title
  • Your name
  • A dedication (optional)
  • Acknowledgments
  • Your poetry (and images, if any)
  • Your biography

Send these in one Word document attached to your email. Do not send a PDF.

Use 12-point Times New Roman font. Do not insert page numbers or use all capital letters in your titles and headings. Use page breaks between your poems. Ensure your manuscript has been proofread for mistakes and typos.

Reading Fee

The reading fee is $20.00 per Daffydowndilly submission (except for those that qualify for our April 2026 Emerging Poet promotion). This allows us to focus our resources on a quick response to manuscript submissions. We aim to respond within two weeks.

Use the link below to submit your fee. You must include your PayPal receipt number in your submissions email.