We are delighted you’re considering working with us, and genuinely look forward to hearing your voice and seeing your story!
We are generally interested in:
- memoirs
- poetry
- inspirational & transformative non-fiction
If your submission is:
- a short work (less than 10,000 words), please submit your story to our Brave Words short works program.
- literary fiction, mystery, or historical fiction, please submit your story to Paper Angel Press.
- science fiction or fantasy, please submit your story to Water Dragon Publishing.
Note: We are not accepting simultaneous submissions at this time.
Here are some basic guidelines that will help make all of our lives easier. Please make sure you read them, and also our About Us page.
Non-Fiction Submissions
If you have a great idea that you want to test drive for publication, feel free to pitch it to us. If you need a template to work from, we have some sample proposals available here you can use.
Manuscript Formats
Send us your complete, finished manuscripts in digital format, using a standard book manuscript format in .DOCX, .RTF, or .ODT format using this submissions form: Unruly Voices Submission Form.
If you’re not sure what a manuscript format is, here’s a good source.
Submission Deadlines
We generally accept submissions February through September.
We will try to acknowledge receipt of your manuscript within 72 hours. We’ll also try to let you know whether or not we’re interested in working with you to publish your book within 90 days after that. Both of these periods may vary, though, depending on the number of manuscripts we’ve received during that time.
Contacting Us
Please don’t contact us about the status of your manuscript unless at least 90 days have passed since we acknowledged receiving it. If you did not receive a acknowledgement, please feel free to contact us.
Submissions FAQ
Short answer
We are generally interested in inspirational & transformative non-fiction and poetry.
Longer answer
By “inspirational,” we mean telling your story so that it can inspire others. By “transformative,” we mean stories about great and impactful choices and changes. By “poetry, we mean, well … poetry.
If you have a story that you’re not sure fits into that category, and believe that there’s a market for it, let’s see if it’s something that we might be able to get excited about as well.
Short answer
However long it takes for you to tell your story.
Longer answer
We’re open to books pretty much of any length, but really prefer that they be at least as long as a novella. This makes pricing and managing other costs much easier. In terms of a standard, we use the SFWA guidelines for word count.
We are not accepting simultaneous submissions at this time.
Short answer
Our goal is to have your book available for sale within six months after you deliver your final manuscript to us.
Longer answer
There a lot of moving parts to the process and, as we all know, life happens and sometimes it may take longer than six months. It’s really up to you, though. This is a partnership and you will need to fulfill your commitments to us in a timely manner as much as we need to keep ours to you.
Short answer
In addition to announcements through our regular promotional and social media channels, you will be provided with a promotional toolkit of items that you can use to help you promote and sell your book.
Longer answer
In addition to being displayed in our online catalog, your book will also be added to any promotional materials that we are developing for the next event where we will be promoting our books. We will provide you with banners that you can use on the major social media platforms, promotional business cards, and a fact sheet for your book. (All of these items are also available — at no cost to you — to use at any events at which you might arrange an appearance.) Your book will be available for sale at events where it is an appropriate fit for the expected audience. Other events and promotional opportunities will be arranged for you and your book as they become available.
Short answer
It depends on how many copies of it we sell.
Longer answer
We don’t pay advances and we don’t charge you anything up front. Instead, we invest our time and resources to help you successfully launch your book. The more successfully we work as a team, the more copies of your book we’re likely to sell, which means we’ll all make more money. Each contract we have with our authors is different, depending on the skills and resources that they bring to the table, so there’s not a “one size fits all” answer to this question.
Short answer
As long as you own the rights, we are absolutely willing to look at your manuscript.
Longer answer
We understand that things happen: that you might want to expand your audience, or are currently working with a publisher that you don’t feel is a good fit for you (or has gone out of business). We are completely open to work that has been previously published — as long as you own the publication rights to your book.
Short answer
No.
Longer answer
We do not charge you to publish your book. We do not charge a reading fee. We do not charge you to use our promotional materials. We are a small, still-growing press, so we can’t afford to pay advances on royalties up front. However, we compensate for this by offering authors a higher per-sale royalty than you are likely to get with any of the traditional — or other smaller — publishers.
During the month of November we neither release books nor look at submissions, because most of the Unruly Voices staff participates in NaNoWriMo (and then spend December recovering from it). We encourage you to come follow our authors and staff over there.