Submissions guidelines |
Submission guidelines
The vast majority of the books we publish are commissioned by us, rather than from submissions. Even so we receive many manuscripts and proposals every year which, unlike many publishers, we welcome.
Before you go any further please look through this website which will give you an idea of the kinds of books we publish. If the type of book you have in mind does not appear on our site, then there is really no point in submitting it to us. You will see that we publish very little fiction, other than some children’s books, and very little poetry. We do not involve ourselves in so-called vanity or self-publishing which in our view serves the interests of neither party. On occasion we will help local charitable and not for profit bodies to publish their work, particularly when they are doing so to raise funds.
We are especially interested in books by Isle of Wight authors on Isle of Wight themes, and also those carrying the subject of islands in general. To be successful, and therefore to interest us, a book will need to appeal to both the resident and the visitor. Generally we do not publish tourist guides as there are many specialists who already do that.
If you think your book proposal does fit in with what we are publishing, in the first instance we would like to see a synopsis, printed single-sided on A4 in a minimum of one and a half line spacing with at least a one inch border on all sides. Do not send electronic submissions at this stage. Send your synopsis to us with a covering letter describing the proposed book more fully. Please state if you have been published before, your background, relevant qualifications and experience. Include your full name, address and daytime telephone number and your email address if you have one. Please include a stamped self-addressed postcard with the title of your work on it. We will then post this back to you as an acknowledgement.
If we are interested in your synopsis, within four weeks we will ask you for a fuller text so that we can evaluate it and discuss it with you.
If we do decide to publish your book we will enter into a contract with you to do so. That contract will also give us rights over the images or content of the book and we will work with you to see if there are ways in which the images and content can be marketed in other ways and other media.