Submit to relevant trade-review outlets
Submit or verify submission to School Library Journal
For children's, middle grade, and young adult titles, confirm that the book was submitted to School Library Journal prepublication under its current category-specific lead time.
Authors often hire help with this: publicity or marketing.
Why it matters
School and public youth librarians buy in volume and rely on SLJ reviews to choose among thousands of titles a season. For a children's or young adult book, being absent from SLJ's consideration pile is a real gap in library visibility. The prepublication lead time makes this a verify-early task.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Publisher and Author. Publisher or authorized submitter sends; author verifies
- When
- Prepublication; confirm the current category-specific lead time on the submissions page (Submit to relevant trade-review outlets: six to three months before publication, against each outlet's own deadline)Checked September 13, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
School Library Journal (SLJ) is the trade magazine for school and youth-services librarians, and it is the single most consulted review source for books aimed at children and teens. Its reviews are editorial consideration: the editors choose from what publishers send, and a submission does not oblige them to review.
SLJ works prepublication and sets lead times by category (picture books, middle grade, young adult, nonfiction, graphic novels, and so on). Those lead times shift, so the honest instruction is to check the current submissions page rather than trust a remembered number. The publisher or an authorized submitter sends the copies.
Verify rather than assume. If a publisher or press submits for you, confirm SLJ is on the list and note the date, because youth publishers almost always submit and "almost" is not "always". If you are submitting yourself, read SLJ's current policy on independent titles before sending anything, and be ready to redirect to outlets with an open independent route if it is closed.
If your book is for adults, this item does not apply; Library Journal is the sibling publication for adult titles.
Common mistakes
- Using a lead time from memory instead of the current category-specific rule.
- Assuming the publisher submitted a young adult crossover title here as well as to adult outlets.
- Sending a self-published title through the publisher route without checking the current policy.
- Forgetting that a review here matters for schools and libraries even if the book sells mostly in retail.
What done looks like
- Confirmation from the publisher that a copy went to SLJ, with the date and the format sent.
- The submission made within the current lead time for your book's category.
- The submission recorded in your log with route and outcome.
- A saved link to any review that appears, ready for school and library outreach.
Evidence. Done means someone says the work happened. Verified means you checked the confirmation, link, or public record yourself.
Ask your publisher
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Sources and last checked
- Official source
- Official source (opens in a new tab)
- Last checked
- September 13, 2026
- How confident we are
- Verified
Rules and deadlines change. We last checked this information on September 13, 2026. If you see something that needs updating, please tell us.