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We love new books. We do. And that's a good thing for us because in 2006 we were absolutely flooded by submissions. That's why we had to close submissions down. We're going to try opening them up again. To guarantee a response, please follow our submission guidelines. Deviations may result in materials being thrown away before they're even read. You don't want that. Neither do we. So, very clearly spelled out, here are our requests: (1) Please send a query letter only. Do NOT send any sample pages. An author bio, either contained in the query letter or on a separate sheet is ok. (2) Do not send us books printed by PublishAmerica, iUniverse, Xlibris, or anybody else as a sample of your work. It will, in 99.9% of the cases, work against you. Obviously, that also means don't include those books in your query letter or list of credits, either. (3) Do not make grand claims about "guaranteed best-seller" or "my book is the next (insert the name of hugely popular book)." All that tells us is that you probably don't understand the publishing industry, and we're going to have severe communication issues. (4) Ask yourself this question—"Self, if my book was going to be turned into a movie, would it require a large special effects budget?" If the answer is "yes," your book probably isn't for us. We don't do thrillers. We aren't interested in fast-paced kidnapping plots, explosions, car chases, terrorism, standard serial killer profiling. It's been done by people bigger than us. And they're likely to do it again. It just isn't our niche. (5) Speaking of our niche, ours is pretty tight. We don't do cozies, sci-fi, westerns, thrillers, suspense, horror, paranormal, vampires, or children's. We do hardboiled/noir books with real type protagonists who are usually quite flawed, maybe not even always "good" guys/girls. Our books are much more about the people in them and the way they live in the world. There is usually an element of crime. Sometimes there is not. (6) Don't send us first drafts. Don't send us queries about books that are "almost done." If that's the state of your book (either state), it's NOT ready no matter what friends and family have told you. (7) No colored paper/ink. White paper. Black ink. That's the standard and we're cool with it. (8) Write your book. Write something that means something. We don't like disposable things. (9) Include a SASE. (10) Don't use Courier. We're sure you read in some book somewhere that Courier was an acceptable choice, widely preferred by the publishing industry. Well, that rule ain't any good here. Provided you've carefully read all of those things (AND HAVE FOLLOWED THEM), please send your query to: Bleak House Books Email queries may also be submitted here. You may add 1-3 pages of your work in the body of your email. Anything with an attachment will be deleted before it has a chance to be read. For real. Even though it's easier for you to shotgun your query to everybody when done electronically--please know that we still don't want sci-fi, romance, thrillers, historical fiction, etc. Once your query has been submitted, please be patient. We'll try to get back to you in a matter of weeks. Sometimes it takes months. Under NO circumstances should you call to check in on the status of a query submission. All of the big, bad talk out of the way, we want to also remind you that we're in this business because we love words and you probably are, too. Even if you aren't right for us, please stick with writing and improving on craft. We respect the hell out of you for it. Thanks, The Editorial Staff of Bleak House Books
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