Literary Submissions – How to Submit Your Novel, Novella or Short Story
Fairlight Books is open to literary submissions of short stories, novellas (between 25,000 and 50,000 words) and novels. We are happy to accept submissions of longer fiction direct from authors. We particularly encourage submissions from authors whose identities and perspectives are underrepresented in fiction publishing, including authors of an ethnic minority background and LGBTQ+ authors.
Literary submissions should be sent to us at: Submissions@FairlightBooks.com
Please mark the submission clearly in the subject line to state whether it is a literary submission of a short story, novel or novella. If you are sending a novel or novella, please send the first 10,000 words only.
Please include a short letter or email telling us about yourself and your writing (often called a ‘query letter’). For longer fiction, please also include a one-page synopsis of the novella or novel’s storyline.
If you are submitting your manuscript directly to us, we would please ask you to take a few minutes to read through the submissions guidelines below, which apply generally, as well as those which apply to submissions of short stories, novels or novellas respectively.
Please submit only one novel, novella or short story at any one time.
General Submission Guidelines
You are looking for literary fiction. What counts as ‘literary’ fiction? That’s not an easy question to answer, because it’s a very subjective subject, but for us, generally, it’s about the quality of the writing and the originality of the story, novel or novella. The work might have a distinctive writing style in which the prose is, in some ways, pushing boundaries or it might have an experimental structure or narrative voice. It might have a traditional narrative style, but take the reader somewhere completely new.
Do you also consider genre or book club fiction? We are interested to receive work that sits between literary fiction and genre / book-club fiction, in which case we are looking for: compelling, three-dimensional characters; a plot that absorbs and surprises the reader; some originality to the treatment of the genre; and, in the case of historical fiction, a demonstration of an in-depth understanding of the period. We are also interested to receive genre-defying fiction which might contain elements of multiple genres, but blending them in an original way. Even if it is done really well, if your work is a classic example of a single genre (such as crime, thriller, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance, erotica etc), and particularly if it is one in a series, then it is probably not for us.
What should I put in the query letter and how long should it be? In the query letter, please just tell us a little about yourself and your writing. Whether you are new to writing or previously published; whether you have self-published your novel or any previous novels; any awards or competitions you might have won for your writing. Don’t worry if you don’t have any awards and haven’t won any competitions: the point of the letter is to let us know where you are with your writing career. There aren’t any right or wrong answers. Don’t forget to include your contact details. Finally, the letter doesn’t need to be long – definitely less than one side of A4 (but not in font size 6!).
What type of documents should I send? We prefer a Word document or, if not possible, a PDF file.
Can I send my submission in the post? We only accept email submissions.
When will you get back to me? We aim to respond to all literary submissions as soon as possible, certainly within three months. We will be able to publish only a small number of the stories and longer fiction we receive, so if we don’t think we can publish your writing, we will try to let you know as soon as possible. We don’t follow the ‘rule’ that you should only submit to one place at a time. Feel free to submit your writing widely – it stands the best chance of publication that way – but please be sure to contact us and withdraw your submission if it is accepted elsewhere.
If you don’t take my writing, will you give me feedback? Unfortunately, with limited resources we aren’t able to give feedback for submissions that we are not taking forward to publication. However, there are some good companies out there who will read your writing and give you feedback for a fee. (There are also some not-so-good ones!) We would recommend Cornerstones Literary Consultancy as an established, reputable manuscript reviewer.
We’d also highly recommend that you think about taking a creative writing course if you haven’t taken one before – not only is it a great way to brush up on your writing skills, but you also get exposure to lots of other writers and writing styles. Many writers’ circles (where writers meet to give feedback to each other) arise as a result of writers meeting each other on a writing course.
What shall I do next if my submission is not accepted? We get asked this question a lot, so we commissioned Lynn Morrison, a marketing executive with more than twenty years of experience, to write these two books:
