Submission Guidelines
Please read these guidelines very carefully. Failure to follow them will result at the very least in confusion, and at worst the discarding of your submission.
Multiple submissions (submitting your manuscript or query to other publishers besides Dark Forest Press) are absolutely accepted. Some publishing companies require that you withhold your work from all other companies until first receiving notice from them. Since this notice is in the vast majority of submissions to be a rejection, our position is that such a policy is utterly absurd and incapacitating, particularly for new writers, and are in favor of it being abolished industry-wide except for those writers who have representation and/or prior relationship with the publisher.
We request that you provide:
- A query letter describing your manuscript and writing resumé. (If your resumé is not extensive, do not be intimidated; we seek new writers, and ability is a more important criterion.) For guidance in what is expected of a query letter, see below.
- Full contact information.
If we are impressed by the query, we may ask for more information, then sample chapters. Do not send writing samples or manuscripts until they are requested.
We request that all query letters be addressed to:
Acquisitions Editor
Dark Forest Press, Inc.
PO Box 683
Washington Grove, MD 20880
Alternatively, you may email your query to . Please compose your query carefully and with professionalism; some correspondents adopt lax standards of discourse when sending email which they would never employ in a written letter. Should you do the so, your query will have little chance of being considered seriously.
We accept submissions in the following categories:
- Fantasy Fiction
- Science Fiction
- Imaginative Literature
- Youth Fiction
- Fantasy/SF-Related Non-Fiction
We cannot at this time consider poetry, erotic literature, or role-playing-games. We cannot provide co-writing, ghost-writing, illustration, or re-writing services. We will only consider works of strong literary merit.
Query Letter Guidance for New Writers
All new writers (and some long-time writers) will benefit greatly from studying and understanding how to communicate effectively with agents and publishers. There are many books available on the subjects of query letters, the publishing industry, and placement with literary agents. We encourage you to research them at your library or local bookstore.
In the meantime, there are several places online which may provide a good starting point for understanding query letters, both for article writing and book publication. A small sample:
