Submissions Procedure
Want to become a Summersdale Author?
Please familiarise yourself with our online catalogue or look at our books in a bookshop before you make a submission. We specialise in travel, humour and general non-fiction. Please do not send fiction, poetry, children's books or autobiography (except celebrity autobiography). We are not currently looking for cookery books or self-help. Unless you are an established writer we will not commission an unfinished book.
To submit your work, please send a cover letter, synopsis and the first two chapters of the work. Always keep a copy; while we will take all possible care of your work, we cannot accept any responsibility for its loss. Never send original artwork or photographs, only photocopies. Manuscripts should be clear and word-processed.
Please allow two to three months for us to get back to you. We reply to submissions as quickly as possible, but the sheer volume we receive means that there is, inevitably, some delay. Do not call the office as it is often impossible to track down a manuscript immediately. If more than four months have passed and we have not replied to you, e-mail us stating the name of the manuscript and the date that you sent it in, and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
If we reject your submission, we are not usually able to provide detailed feedback because of the huge amount of material we receive. There are many reasons why books are rejected, so please remember that this is not necessarily a reflection on the quality of the work. Many promising manuscripts are rejected because they simply do not fit onto our list, or because we have already published - or have plans to publish - something along similar lines, and as a small, independent publishing company the number of books we can accommodate on our list is limited.
Find out more about what our commissioning editor for travel is looking for by clicking here.
If e-mailing your submission, please send as one single Word attachment to
General interest, Self help/health, Gift, Humour and True Crime submissions
Alternatively send your sample chapters to:
Submissions Team
Summersdale Publishers Ltd
46 West Street
Chichester
West Sussex
PO19 1RP
United Kingdom
Please provide an e-mail address so we can contact you, or enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope for our reply. If you would like your material returned, please ensure that you include adequate postage for us to send it back, otherwise your manuscript will be disposed of. We have had to institute a policy of not replying to writers who send inadequate postage and no e-mail address. If you are overseas, please send us International Reply Coupons, not foreign stamps or money.
Checklist:
* Cover letter and synopsis.
* Two word-processed sample chapters.
* Email address/Stamped self-addressed envelope/International Reply Coupons.
* All materials carefully edited and checked for spelling.