Think about what you enter ...

The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses was set up in 2016 to reward, celebrate and promote work that mainstream publishing was not supporting - work that is innovative, creatively challenging, and a financial risk on behalf of the publisher. Broadly this is defined by literary fiction, which in many ways is defined by what it is not: genre fiction - crime, romance, comedy, and to a certain degree, historical fiction. These are areas where mainstream publishing puts much of its energy and resource because there are large readerships - profit is possible.

While we will accept submissions of genre novels, we need to be clear, when it comes to judging, the intrinsic commercial nature of such writing will be taken into account and preference will be given to work that is less commercially viable - because ultimately we are rewarding presses who are willing to take a financial risk on work that keeps literature in the UK as vibrant, surprising, challenging and diverse as is possible.

Before entering please look at our past winners and think about whether the book you want to enter fits with our aims.