Propertius Press

 Full submissions 

Dear Writers...

Thank you for your interest in submitting your work to us.

We publish high-quality literary fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and short-story anthologies. We consider submissions in all genres, including action-adventure, urban contemporary, biography, memoir, high-quality romance and women’s literature, children’s stories, young adult, satire, mystery, historical fiction, thrillers, humor, philosophy, and educational works.

What We Offer

As a small, independent nonprofit located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, we are able to offer very competitive terms to our authors, including professionally-designed covers, editing, formatting, and distribution to online outlets as well as availability to any bricks-and-mortar bookstore through Ingram.

Our books are also available directly from us, through our easy-to-remember Bookstore URL,

www.visitourbookstore.com. Through pre-orders, you can promote your book with a direct link before it's available anywhere else! Plus, your local bookshop can easily order directly from us without the hassles of dealing with the larger distribution network requirements.

 

Our general publishing terms are to release within 12 to 18 months of signing a contract to publish, in both eBook and paperback formats. We offer our authors a graduated percentage of net proceeds (the more a book sells, the higher the percentage), paid annually, ten free copies of their published works, professional marketing assistance, and generous discounts on all books we publish.

What We Look For

Ensure your work is carefully edited for spelling, grammar, and syntax (reliable advice is available—please use it!). Please be aware we will follow Chicago Manual of Style regarding punctuation, especially commas! We are looking for timeless, engaging, fulfilling works that will be just as vibrant and satisfying years from now as they are today.

 

Therefore, if you are writing to a popular youth-oriented market or your work is based on the latest fantasy genre (superpowers, demonic possession, zombies, vampires, angels, and the like) then we are probably not the publisher for you. This is not to say we will automatically

reject a story with imaginative use of the plausible impossible—it just should not be the main characteristic of the work.

Similarly, we are not looking for overtly political work, unless it is an interesting treatise on anarchy, philosophically crafted, coupled with educational social commentary or touching on social justice themes. Those we really, really would like to read, so please do send them!

 

Finally, we do not really need you to send us marketing materials, or a business plan telling us what a great investment you are, with your submission. We just want to read your carefully crafted piece.

 

If it’s for us, that will be evident from the words.

We are actively seeking works by black and minority writers. Submissions taken year-round.

lease bear in mind that we are a very small publisher, and work with less than two dozen serious contenders for publication per year. At the moment, less than 1% of all submissions received make it through the entire vetting process and result in a published piece. We’re looking for works that will tease the imagination, that are provocative but not flashy, that are interesting enough to find a place on the favorite shelves of our readers.

All this being said, if you believe in your work, but aren’t sure it will meet our (admittedly stringent) criteria, please submit it. Don’t be afraid to send us a good story that would benefit from the polishing skills of our editorial staff. We appreciate “good bones” in a work as much as a perfectly written piece crafted with an eye on market share.

 

Perhaps even a bit more, to be honest…popular tastes do change, but a great story lasts for generations.

So send us your best work. We do review every submission.

Our Process

For the fastest response, all submissions should be submitted in one of the following forms:

.doc or .docx or .rtf or .txt

We ONLY ACCEPT manuscripts submitted through our Submittable platform. Do NOT send us published, including self-published, printed and bound books by mail. They will not be accepted.

 

 

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