The Proposal - Publishing Guide

How can I be considered for publication?

• If you would like to be considered for publication, you need the make an enquiry from the Submissions page on our website.
• If we like your enquiry, we will invite you to submit a full proposal.
• If we like your proposal, we will offer you one of our four contracts.

We are different to other publishers

To enure a good fit, before you submit an enquiry, read:

• The Way We Work,
• Contract Levels & Contract Terms
• If your book is an anthology, please read Anthologies.

I have published with you before. Do I still need to submit an enquiry?

Yes.

How long will you take to respond to my enquiry?

Occasionally hours, usually days, and unlikely over a week.

How many enquiries do you invite to submit a full proposal?

We invite about 25% of enquiries to submit a full proposal.

Of those proposals, we offer contracts to about 50%

Why do you reject enquiries and proposals?

It may be that we don’t think we can add enough value to your publishing process, another publisher may be a better fit, or perhaps self-publishing may be more suitable.

Don’t despair. It’s not necessarily a reflection on your writing.

I have been invited to complete a proposal. What do I do?

When you log into the JHP site, you will have access to two pages, Book Details, and Profile. Fill out the open fields on each page.

• The Book Details page is designed to tell us everything important about your book.
• The Profile page is designed for you to tell us everything important about you as an author.

The Dos and Do nots of filling out a proposal

We wll only consider your book for publication once.

If we offer you a contract we will use the information here as the starting point for your sales, marketing, publicity and back cover copy.

Some of it, like the book title and your short bio will feed through to our website and databases used by bookshops and Amazon, etc.

Show us your best work, take your time and do it carefully!

• Don’t include just a synopsis. We need at least 5000 words of the final text.
• Don’t use ampersands, quotation marks, hyphens and other special punctuation.
• Don’t use non-English characters, such as Greek lettering or French punctuation.
• Don’t copy and paste info into the fields. It messes up formatting.
• Do type it in from scratch.
• Do include info that would be happy to see circulated; no private notes, comments etc.

You will diminish your chances of publication (at least of getting it without being asked for a subsidy) if:

• You provide a draft, not a polished manuscript.
• You provide sample chapters, not a complete text.
• Your work contains spelling and grammatical errors.
• Your work contains unprofessional styles of punctuation or formatting, such as words in ALL CAPS, or too many exclamation marks!!!
• Your work contains colour photos which you insist on keeping (as a general rule, we only print black and white, though exceptions can be made).
• Your work contains too many text boxes, charts and complex graphics (these are expensive to format for publishing and increase the cost of producing your book; though again, exceptions are made).

Guidance on individual proposal fields

For a quick guidance as you're filling it out, click on

For detailed guidance, our Publishing Guide has help articles on nearly every field (linked below).

Book Details

Book Details fields you need to fill out: Title; Subtitle; Strapline; Description; Audience; Market Position; Marketing Plan; Competing Books; Unique Selling Points; Estimated Sales; Author Sales; Estimated Word Count; Other Publishers; Files; Endorsements; Reviews; Categories.

Profile

Profile fields you need to fill out: First / Last Name; Website address/social feeds; Address; Full Bio; Short Bio; Previous books, detailed guidance in How To Fill Out Your Author Profile

I’m ready to submit my proposal. What do I do?

Click on the Click here to submit proposal button at the top of the Book Details page.

I have submitted my proposal. What happens next?

Out team of readers are notified for their comments on the proposal and the manuscript.

Based on their consensus, our Managing Director makes a decision to offer a contract or not, usually within a week.

There is nothing legally binding on either side until contracts are accepted.

Finding the right imprint

• If you are keen on one imprint and only want your manuscript to be published in that imprint, there is a box you can tick to that effect when you make your original enquiry.
• If you have not ticked that box, we may move your proposal to another imprint if in the publisher’s opinion it would fit better there.

I have been offered a contract. Can I still edit my Book Details and Profile?

You can edit your Book Details right up to the point the manuscript goes into production, and you can make changes to your Profile at any time.

Useful links

• For where we fit into the industry, there’s an infographic prepared in 2104 by The Independent Publishing Magazine, if you click here, or go to https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz67hEcBIl10YzNsTVRLWkdJams/edit?pli=1.
• For an explanation of publishing language when dealing with authors, try Little white lies; http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/27/what-publishers-really-mean-euphemisms.
• For a humorous look at how not to approach the business of writing and getting published, try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9fc-crEFDw&feature=player_embedded.

Video

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