Holiday Related Stories

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!

Lilley Press would like to do a special release of holiday related novellas and maybe a short story collection or two! For this particular call, we do NOT want longer novels as we could not get them ready in time. So, what are we looking for?

Word length: 25-40,000 words max. We will also accept short stories for a possible multi-author collection and collections of short stories by the same author.

We want strong plots and characters and all stories must relate to/feature the holidays. Authors must be willing to move very quickly on edits to help get the works out in time.

DEADLINE: August 25, 2008.

Follow all our other guidelines below when submitting. Please note that your submission is for the Holidays Release in your subject line.

Lilley Press is a Canadian Small Press which publishes both eBooks and print. Please read and follow these guidelines carefully as not doing so will lengthen the time it takes for us to consider your work, and could result in a rejection of your work.

All submissions must be new and unpublished works. Lilley Press does not accept reprints from new authors.

Lilley Press accepts only one manuscript per author at a time. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but if your manuscript is being considered elsewhere, please let us know and keep us informed about its status.

We will consider novel and novella length works of fiction from 15,000 – 100,000 words, but prefer to see works in the 60,000 word plus range. We want strong plots and characters.

Lilley Press publishes the following Genres:

• Paranormal Romance
• Speculative Fiction such as Magical Realism, Cyberpunk, Fantasy, Science Fiction, etc
• Mainstream (Contemporary)
• Young Adult

If your work does not fall within these specific categories, we may still consider it. However, Lilley Press does not publish the following:

• "Fan Fiction" or stories with copyrighted characters or worlds.
• Erotica.
• Plays.
• Poetry.
• Short Story Collections.
• Nonfiction.

Submissions Procedure:

Lilley Press accepts only electronic submissions.

All submissions should be Emailed to us as a MS Word rtf attachment that is compatible with MS Word 2000 (if it is not, there is a chance the formatting will get messed up or the file will be unreadable to us). We do not accept doc files, pdf files, or anything with a file extension other than rtf. Any such submissions will be deleted, unread. All submissions should be accompanied by an email cover letter introducing you and your submission. The cover letter should be in the body of your email, not included as a separate file. Please include the following information:

Your full name
Your mailing address
Your telephone number
A valid email address
A brief synopsis of your novel

The subject line of your email should read: [Genre] [Title] by [author's real name]

Please include THE ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT as a complete separate file. Do not send individual chapter files.

Please send your submissions to submissions@lilleypress.com. Adress your query to our Acquisitions Editor, Denyse Loeb.

Lilley Press does not publish anything containing overly graphic violence, hate propaganda, or gratuitous sex (sex, violence and coarse language are okay up to a point, but they must be within the bounds of good taste, and they must be integral to the plot.)


Formatting:

Please note, over 90% of our initial slush pile rejections (the manuscripts that don't make it to our reader panel) are because of not following the guidelines. To give your novel the best chance of moving past Acquisitions to the reader panel, follow the guidelines.

Lilley Press generally follows standard manuscript format. You can find examples and instructions for standard manuscript format here, here, and here. What follows is our specific requirements and adjustments to standard manucript format.

The first page of the manuscript should contain the following information:

• Title
• Author's real name and pen name
• Author's contact email address
• word count

All manuscripts must be in Courier 12 font, NOT Times New Roman (which the Acquisitions Editor finds hard on her eyes, so don't use it!).

All manuscripts must be sent as a MS Word rtf attachment that is compatible with MS Word 2000.

All manuscripts must be double spaced, with one inch (1") margins. Paragraphs should be indented five spaces.

Use page or section breaks at the end of each chapter ensuring that each chapter begins on a new page.

It is not necessary to use _ for italics or * for bold. We prefer to see italics and bold as the author intended them.

Please send us your BEST work. Submissions should be free of punctuation, spelling and grammar errors. Any manuscripts that do not meet this basic requirement will not be considered.


Terms & Conditions:

Lilley Press does not offer an author advance at this time. Royalties are 50% of net sales for eBooks, and 15% of net sales for print editions, to be paid quarterly. All novels are first published as eBooks, with the option for a print edition later.

Lilley Press does not provide a certificate of copyright for our authors, but we do provide an ISBN number.

Each author will receive an acknowledgment of receipt for their manuscript, and we will endeavor to respond to all submissions within three months. If you do not hear from us within that time, please feel free to send us a query asking about the status of your submission.

All queries may be sent to submissions@lilleypress.com.

Please use the words Author Query: [Genre] [Title] by [author's real name] as the subject of your email.

Lilley Press welcomes your submissions!