How to Get Published By a Small Press

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So, you’ve written a novel or short story collection and you want to get it published. One route to publication in the UK is to secure an agent, who will then approach suitable publishers. Often these publishers will be major players in the literary scene – but, increasingly, they might be indie presses. Agents are more and more aware that smaller presses – while unable to compete with the likes of Penguin Random House or HarperCollins in terms of advances – offer benefits that mainstream publishers may not. 

If you don’t have an agent, you might want to try submitting to a major publisher ‘over the transom’ (which means sending in your manuscript unsolicited) but you could well be better off approaching a smaller press. In this article, we speak to an array of publishers to discover the benefits of choosing a small press and how to submit to one. Here are our top tips:

Scope out the indie press scene

While many indie presses publish a wide range of work, a significant proportion of them specialise in one particular area. They may be focussed on a certain genre, such as crime or literary fiction. They may concentrate on bringing translated fiction from a particular language to a wider audience; examples include Holland Park Press, which publishes translations from Dutch, or Nordisk, which focusses on Scandinavian fiction. They might publish books about (or by authors from) a particular country, such as Irish stalwart Lilliput Press. Many small publishers are dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices; Cipher Press brings out work by queer-identifying authors, while Linen Press publishes books by women (often from marginalised backgrounds). When scouting out potential publishers for your book, you should consider how your work will fit into their lists. 

Find out the publisher’s submissions policy

Once you’ve identified a press you want to send your manuscript to, it’s important to find out their submission policy. There’s lots to consider here. For example, does the publisher accept unsolicited or unagented submissions? And do they want to see the whole book up front, or a few chapters, or just an outline? Do you need to send in a CV? A cover letter? While the exact requirements can vary from publisher to publisher, most will want to get an idea of the overall character of the book and see at least a small sample. 

While submitting a book to a small press is the same in many respects as submitting to a mainstream publisher, there are some particular advantages. In general, small presses are much more open to unsolicited and unagented submissions. Antony Farrell, Publisher at Lilliput, explains: ‘We have an open policy. We are dependent on agents to some degree, but I always think of agents as three in a bed.’ While an agent is something of a necessity in mainstream publishing (particularly, Farrell notes, in the UK), a small press is much more likely to accept unagented submissions. 

Farrell is also a big fan of picking up new authors through the Irish Novel Fair: ‘It’s like speed dating. Simple but effective.’ 

As for what you actually need to send in, there is once again some variation. Lilliput usually asks for a sample chapter and an outline of the whole book. Similarly, Lynn Michell says: ‘Linen Press is open to unsolicited submissions and I read everything that comes in […] I ask for a covering letter explaining why the proposal is right for Linen Press, a writing CV, a short synopsis which tells me what kind of book is being submitted, and the first 2,500 words. If we like a submission, we ask for the first 50 pages.’ 

On the other hand, Hawkwood director Ellis Delmonte puts a high premium on succinctness, asking for ‘a synopsis, a few pages, no more’. The basic takeaway here is that it’s crucial to find and follow the individual publisher’s submission guidelines, since they’re not always looking for the same thing.

Small presses tend to be more sensitive than big publishers to the fact that sending in your manuscript can be a bruising process. This is particularly the case for indie publishers that serve underrepresented authors and audiences. 

For Jenn Thompson at Cipher Press, it’s important that the submission process feels accessible. ‘We’re still new to this,’ she explains, ‘but we’re really keen to put in the work to find new authors, understanding that many people in our community might lack the confidence or voice to submit, especially those people who are further marginalised within the LGBTQI+ community.’ 

Another benefit to submitting to a small press is that your manuscript isn’t going to get lost in the machinery of a massive corporation. Bernadette Jansen op de Haar explains: ‘Being a small press, I try to come back to authors in 4-6 weeks time. It doesn’t take months.’

In conclusion, the small press community’s renowned emphasis on author care is evident from the very beginning of the publishing process.

Make your submission stand out

Indie presses are often small operations, but they receive enormous amounts of submissions and may only have one or two editors to go through them all. As a result, it’s crucial to make your submission stand out. Here, the publishers are all in agreement: it’s the quality of the book, particularly the prose, that matters. 

Excitement and originality are key. For example, Nordisk’s Duncan Lewis observes, ‘I like to publish books that do something different with language and a lot of our titles do not necessarily follow a traditional novel format.’ 

Thompson is similarly drawn to fresh, well-crafted work, saying she looks at ‘voice, originality, and sentences!’ Moreover, she explains that – as a publisher for LGBTQI authors – Cipher ‘want stories that haven’t been told before, that reflect how nuanced and varied the queer experience is’. 

Farrell also places great emphasis on the quality of the writing. When asked what makes a submission stand out to him, he simply replied: ‘The quality of the prose, the old cliché.’ Likewise, Linen Press are searching for ‘a masterly, sensitive and original use of language’. Meanwhile, for Delmonte, it’s the ‘beauty and originality of the writing’ that clinches it for him. He adds: ‘And humour.’ 

So, the message is clear: if you want to get published, it’s the quality of the writing itself that matters. As such, it’s important to make sure the book is as good as it can possibly be before you think about sending it off.

What Happens Next?

So now you’ve got a better idea of the submission process, it’s time to find out what happens if you’re lucky enough to have your work accepted.  

Thompson likes to get to know her authors and make sure everyone’s on the same page: ‘We do a Skype or call with the author to talk about how they think the book should be pitched and what they’d like it to look/feel like, and we draw a timeline for the editorial process. We like working closely with the author from the beginning.’  

Michell also likes to make sure everyone’s happy before signing anything: ‘We talk through the book in detail – its strengths and any possible flaws or weaknesses which might benefit from redrafting. Once we are both confident about working together, we sign the contract. And then we get to work.’ 

The actual mechanics of turning your Word Document into a book are, of course, much the same as they would be with a major publisher. As Farrell explains, your book will normally be published ‘within a year’, after ‘editing, typesetting, design, and marketing preparation’. Once the book comes back from the printer, Lilliput spends about six weeks getting proofs out and ‘exciting public interest’. 

Why Go Indie?

While small presses work hard to make sure the submission process is as painless as possible, it’s what happens after your book gets accepted that really makes indie publishers special. All of the publishers we spoke to agree that going with an indie firm results in what Thompson calls ‘a more intimate experience’. ‘When you publish fewer books,’ Thompson explains, ‘you can give more attention to those you do publish. It’s less about the money, more about the process of bringing a manuscript to life.’

Likewise, each of Michell’s authors ‘gets several months of close personal attention’, with the press and author ‘collaborat[ing] on everything’. The intimate relationships small presses are able to maintain with their authors mean that the writer ‘has more influence over what’s going to happen to a book’, according to Jansen op de Haar. Farrell describes the author-publisher connection as ‘like being in a marriage: a close relationship and an important one’. Small presses may not be able to offer you a whopping advance, but they are the gold standard in author care.

Finally, many of the industry commentators we spoke to were keen to point out that indie presses are small but mighty. ‘We’ve often sold books on to bigger presses and we have a very good name for finding [new authors] and being discriminating,’ Farrell observes. 

Similarly, Nordisk is a prime example of how a small press can help bring a writer to wider recognition. Lewis explains: ‘Many [authors], even those who have won various prestigious awards in their home country and have perhaps been published in other languages, are conscious that not many of the larger publishers are interested in literary titles from Scandinavia.’ However, being published in English by small presses like Nordisk ‘can also be helpful with rights sales to larger publishers in other countries, as they then have a complete text that they can read’. 

So, if you still have aspirations to work with a major publisher in the future, selling your first book to an small press can be an important stepping stone. However, you might just find that you prefer the dedicated, rigorous and attentive work of a small press. 

Samantha Purvis