Submission Guidelines

Guidelines

  • WE DO NOT ACCEPT: porn, abuse, anything with rape, fanfic. Sorry for the “arson, murder and jaywalking” approach, fan-fiction writers. If you have a great novella, containing Doctor Who, the editor is sure it can be a great story with a few editing tweaks to remove him. And for ease of communication, this includes characters out of copyright like Sherlock Holmes. This is in bold at the start because you wouldn’t believe how many writers ignore it. Other publishers can print rape revenge or abused wife/child books to their hearts content, we do not want those.
  • For unsolicited manuscripts, please send a cover letter, a synopsis, and three chapters to editor@othersidebooks.co.uk. Doc, docx, rtf all accepted.
  • Please entitle emails “OtherSideBooks Submission – (Name of Author) – (Name of Story).
  • Please include the following information in the email: name, email address, book title and a brief synopsis of the book and first 3 chapters. This is the same rule for fiction and non-fiction.
  • If you send in a collection of short stories, please read 3 chapters as 2 stories. Pick your best ones.
  • In general, if the editor likes the gist of your tale, we will then ask for the full manuscript to read. This should take no longer than 6 months to come to a final acceptance, but if you think your submission has been lost in cyberspace (it happens) feel free to ask after the 4 month mark. Also because 4-6 months is quite a long time for a writer, you can send your stories elsewhere. Just, please, if you manage to sell it to someone else first, do let us know!
  • The editor will not discriminate due to a lack of Standard Manuscript Format, though using that would be nice.
  • All genres accepted. That includes horror, kitchen sink drama, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, historical, alt-history, autobiographies of retired MPs, biographies of witchfinders of the 18th Century, and so on…
  • Narrative non-fiction (like the best of Alan Coren or Jack Kerouac) is accepted.
  • Is it a good story? If so, we can deal with the rest.
  • We accept stories from newcomers and legends alike, and everyone in between. Don’t worry if it’s your first submission ever. The editor doesn’t bite. Honest.
  • Word count: circa 15, 000 – 80,000 words. That is not a permanent upper limit, but please query first for books over that upper limit. Also, feel free to query about books in the twelve-fifteen thousand range if you must.
  • REPRINTS WELCOME (Provided the author retained full reprint rights!)
  • This is not a vanity publishing industry. Whilst we have no problems with giving a helping hand to new writers, each published book has passed the editorial team seal of approval. The general flow of money in writing should go towards the writer, not away from them. Therefore, if you see a publisher that suggests or coerces payment up front, it is almost certainly a con. I say this because many new writers are caught out by these demons. [Some writers sort out buying copies in bulk at a discount so they can then make a bigger profit selling them, but this is only allowed if the writer can be expected to sell those books given their name value or previously known sales skills, or if they have a bookshop interested. So no, John Smith the 20 year old newcomer isn’t getting charged for 50 copies of his book to hand them to mum and dad either – this is another trick some duplicitous markets use.)
  • We have 2 main reading periods per year: March, and October-November. Writers may submit proposals at any time, but submissions outside these windows may take longer than our standard reply time.
  • We offer royalty payment per book sold. This 75% of the profit (not the sales price, as alas Amazon eat quite a lot of that themselves, which is why they are billionaires and we are not) per sale. We cannot currently offer advances or a “per word” payment. I’m sorry, this is a working class outfit and Brexit has buggered up a lot of the revenue streams for the small presses.
  • Other Side Books publishes your book on Amazon in Kindle format and in paperback.
  • Payment will be made via Paypal, agreed with the writer. As it is royalties based, it will naturally be after sales. At the moment this happens twice a year.