These guidelines are considered minimum qualifications. Additional factors may also determine whether a publisher is or is not eligible for PAL.
1. The author/illustrator shall not have paid any money to the publisher for consideration of their work; nor for the publication, marketing, editing and/or distribution of their work; nor any other payment in order to produce their work in any format. This eliminates all forms of vanity publishing, subsidy publishing, and hybrid publishing, including agreements in which publication costs are taken from the creator’s royalties. Publishers that offer traditional and self-publishing options within the same publishing house or imprint may not qualify for PAL.
2. The publisher, whether traditional or new media, must provide a professional editorial process prior to publication at no charge to the author/illustrator.
3. The author/illustrator must not be required to purchase copies of their own books.
4. The publisher must offer a means of broad distribution of the work to retail customers.
5. The publisher must have published works from at least five authors and/or illustrators who are not related to each other. Thus, if there are several illustrators but only one author (or vice versa) the publisher will not qualify.
6. The publisher must show a consistent track record of publishing works for a Children’s/Young Adult audience.
7. The publisher, whether traditional or new media, provides a means of marketing at no cost to the author/illustrator.
SCBWI retains the right to disqualify a publisher from PAL if it finds the publisher no longer meets PAL criteria.