Open the Doors…

Now that our new leader has settled in and learned where the kettle is, she’s opening the doors to the proverbial castle – we’re thrilled to announce that we’re holding an open submission period for the entire month of May. We’d love to see your weird and wonderful SFF novels. We’re looking for stories well told, stories we haven’t heard before, stories with a message, but most importantly we’d love to hear from writers of colour and LGBTQ authors. Send us your darlings – we’ll read every one.

Due to the volume we expect (and hope!) to have we won’t be able to offer feedback on every submission unless we’re interested in talking to you about joining the glorious army as an author.

Don’t worry if you don’t have something ready – we hold these open sub months once a year, so get writing for next time.

FAQ

How do I submit to you?

Send us a short cover letter that introduces yourself and pitches your book (max 600 words), with a separate word document attachment that includes a synopsis of the novel (max a page), followed by the first three chapters (or first 15 pages if your chapters are really short) to openthedoors@angryrobotbooks.com

What do you want to see?

Good question! This is an opportunity for unpublished, unsolicited books only. If you’re already represented, please go through the normal channels. We only publish SFF novels so if it’s not in that genre we won’t be able to move ahead. We also need the book to be finished because if we’re interested, we’ll want to get cracking straight away. If it’s not finished yet – don’t worry – there’s always next year.

As a guide, we’re looking for novels of a word count between 80-150,000. But if you’re a bit over this, don’t panic too much. That’s what editorial stages are for!

As a side note, we don’t publish screenplays, poems or short stories so please don’t send us those! We’re also not looking for novellas/novelettes – full novels only!

How long until I hear back from you?

We’ll read everything that arrives and if we like it, you’ll get an email from us asking to read more! If you don’t hear from us by the end of July, unfortunately it’s a no. We would love to have the time to send everyone a personal rejection with feedback but we just don’t have the time to do that and also carry on publishing great books.

*Edit:

If we’ve asked for a full manuscript from you, we’re hoping to get back to you before Christmas 2019. But we’ll update you if this changes

What happens if you really REALLY like it?

Well, then, we’ll probably really REALLY want to send you an offer to publish it! If at that stage you want to try and find an agent, then we’ll wait until you sort that.

Otherwise, we’ll go ahead directly with you and issue a contract in due course. We’ll go through it all with you at the time, so don’t panic (but if you want to do some swotting up beforehand, you can check out resources like The Society of Authors).

How many can I submit?

Got more than one novel in your pipeline? That’s great! But we’re only looking for one per person right now. As we’re expecting to receive quite a large volume, we need to put a cap on it. But feel free to mention in your cover letter about the other irons in your fire.

When can I send it to you?

Doors are open from 1st May until 31st May. If you’ve already got something ready, we applaud your organisation, but please wait until 1st May to send. Anything sent before, and anything sent after the closing date, won’t be counted.

My question isn’t answered on this list – help!

Tweet at us @angryrobotbooks if we’ve missed something and we’ll help you out! If it’s a question that might be relevant to more people we’ll add to this list.

Otherwise, we’ll go ahead directly with you and issue a contract in due course. We’ll go through it all with you at the time, so don’t panic (but if you want to do some swotting up beforehand, you can check out resources like The Society of Authors).

How many can I submit?

Got more than one novel in your pipeline? That’s great! But we’re only looking for one per person right now. As we’re expecting to receive quite a large volume, we need to put a cap on it. But feel free to mention in your cover letter about the other irons in your fire.

When can I send it to you?

Doors are open from 1st May until 31st May. If you’ve already got something ready, we applaud your organisation, but please wait until 1st May to send. Anything sent before, and anything sent after the closing date, won’t be counted.

My question isn’t answered on this list – help!

Tweet at us @angryrobotbooks if we’ve missed something and we’ll help you out! If it’s a question that might be relevant to more people we’ll add to this list.

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