Submission Guidelines

To submit to CJLA, send us a query letter describing your book and yourself. Make sure all query letters are in the body of the email and not attached to a short note indicating it as an attachment. You may include 3-5 sample pages from your manuscript or your overview/idea pages from your proposal directly in the body of your email following your query letter. Attachments will not be opened unless specifically requested. We only accept email queries; all snail mail queries will be discarded without being opened. 

We do not accept re-submissions. In addition, we will only consider one manuscript at a time (no listing three or four manuscripts at a time that aren't part of a series), to one agent at a time. Simultaneous submissions to CJLA will be declined, and as we work together closely often passing projects between us, a rejection from one agent is a rejection from the agency.

Our response time on queries is running 2-4 weeks, and on requested partials and manuscripts, you can expect to hear back from us in 4-8 weeks. If for some reason you haven’t heard back from us beyond that time frame, please feel free to follow-up by email.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

Caren Estesen is looking for romance (all genres so she's now open to paranormal and romantic suspense in addition to contemporary and historical), erotica, up-market women's fiction, thrillers and YA. In nonfiction she's looking for social sciences, narrative science, women's studies, and history (particularly World War II and the Cold War). She is not considering commercial fiction, literary fiction or mysteries at this time. 

To submit to her, email johnsonlitagency [at] gmail [dot] com

Elana Roth is focusing her list on children's and young adult books, and is primarily looking for high concept middle grade and YA fiction. She will consider picture books from author/illustrators only. She'll also consider a select number of adult projects in the areas of narrative nonfiction, pop culture and pop science. No vampires.

To submit to her, email elana [at] johnsonliterary [dot] com

Thanks!

(Updated July 2009)