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Meerkat Press Is Open To Novel Submissions

March 31, 2022

Deadline: March 31st, 21022
Payment: Royalty-based payments for novels, and in some cases, an advance against royalties.
Theme: Speculative Fiction [most sub-genres and especially if those genre lines are crossed in unique ways] NO: Swords & Sorcery Fantasy / Epic Fantasy / Young Adult / Middle Grade

Submissions for 2024 will open on January 1st, 2022 and close on March 31st, 2022. 

We are currently booked through 2023 so we’re temporarily closed for submissions. Please read carefully as we have updated what we will be accepting in our next open submission period.

We publish approximately four books per year. The odds of having a book accepted by Meerkat Press are very, very low just based on the number of submissions compared to the number of books we publish. We don’t just encourage, we insist on simultaneous submissions as we would hate for your hard work to be tied up here based on the time it takes us to get through submissions and that most books will be rejected.

We are looking for original stories that make our brains engage, our breaths catch and our hearts thud. We want stories that keep us up all night reading and leave us begging for more. Stories we can’t shake long after reading. Give us fresh voices, unique/flawed characters, imaginative story lines, and diversity in characters and settings (and authors!) Our catalog does have a high percentage of speculative fiction and darker themes, but that’s not all we publish, so please read carefully:

If you have a completed work that fits the description in one of the categories below, we hope you will submit it for consideration. We do not sign contracts for work that has not yet been written so as much as your pitch for unwritten work may be interesting, it will just clutter our inbox and we don’t respond to pitches that don’t have a completed work attached. We also are not currently accepting series and trilogies at this time as it tends to fill up our release calendar too quickly, and we don’t want to disappoint you by saying no to subsequent works as it is very hard to sell a second or third book to a new publisher if they didn’t publish the first one. So only stand-alone works at this time.

Novella and shorter Novel-length manuscripts (17K – 60K):

  • What we are looking for:
    • Ages: Adult
    • Genres:
      • Speculative Fiction [most sub-genres and especially if those genre lines are crossed in unique ways]
      • Literary-leaning Speculative Fiction
      • We love darker themes but not exclusively
      • For our next submission period, we will not be accepting:
        • Swords & Sorcery Fantasy / Epic Fantasy
        • Young Adult / Middle Grade
  • Submission Guidelines:
    • Include a cover email containing genre, word count, pitch, brief bio, and contact information.
    • Please confirm that your story has not been published before (self-published is considered previously published).
    • A full synopsis (up to 3 pages)
    • Your completed novel manuscript.
    • Use Proper Novel Manuscript Format (Meerkat exceptions: Times New Roman preferred, one space after period, italics are okay, em dashes are okay)
    • We ONLY accept US manuscript formatting. This means double-quotes, period and most punctuation inside the quotes, etc.
    • We accept .doc, .docx (preferred), .txt, and .rtf files
    • Send to [email protected] with subject line: Novel – Genre – Title – Author
    • Simultaneous submissions are encouraged, but please notify us immediately if your work is no longer available.
  • Payment: We make royalty-based payments for novels, and in some cases, an advance against royalties.
  • General: Royalties, marketing plan and budget, editorial process, and expectations will be thoroughly discussed prior to signing. We only publish books we love, so if accepted, you’ll have a publisher/champion/partner working with you every step of the way!

We try to be as quick as we can with our responses, but we are a small press and aren’t always reading submissions. That is why simultaneous submissions are not only accepted, but also encouraged (as long as you notify us promptly if your work is accepted elsewhere). Our goal is to reply to all 2022 submissions by December 31st, 2022. If you haven’t heard back from us in that time, please contact us at [email protected] with a subject line of: Query – Novel – Genre – Title – Author.

Thank you for your interest.

Via: Meerkat Press.

Details

Date:
March 31, 2022