Submissions

1889 is, at its core, a web fiction publisher. We strongly believe that great writing happens on the web, without poking or prodding from outside sources, entirely at the writer’s discretion. Our goal is to find that writing and the people who create it, and help them go a little bit further than they could on their own.

In a nutshell: if you have never written a web series before, we’re probably not the publisher for you. It’s not that your writing isn’t excellent, but we want to focus on those who have already put a lot on the line and survived. So if you’re really desperate to work with us, start serializing a novel, get yourself an audience, have some fun, and come to us when it’s done. We don’t provide validation for your work. We require pre-existing validation to do more.

We accept three types of work:

• If you have a short story you want to share with the world, check out ULTRA.
• If you have an idea for a series, please read the separate Series Submission guidelines.

For book publishing, please read the following carefully…

Novels
First, the bad news: our schedule is absolutely packed for the remainder of 2012. If you submit a proposal, you will probably not get a slot until 2013 at the earliest. Worse yet, you may not even get a reply for several months. It’s nothing personal: we’re a pretty small operation, working our brains out to stay on top of things.

If you still want to try your hand at a proposal, this is what you should be sending:

1. Your name (and your pen name, if any)
2. A quick description of your book. Two sentences max. Catch our attention.
3. A longer description, probably three paragraphs long. Tell us about the characters, the issues at play, and use phrasing that conveys the tone of the book. Don’t be dry.
4. Link to some of your writing on the web. Remember: we give a lot of preference to authors who have blazed their own trail. If you can demonstrate your awesomeness in a single URL, all the better.
5. Include a sample chapter. Don’t pick the first chapter, pick the best one. Don’t worry about spoilers, or leaving us confused. Show us what you can do. Oh, and your formatting will be lost in the field, so if italics are really important to you, try switching them to all caps.

Pro tip: most of the series we run on the site end up as books when they finish serializing. It’s not a guaranteed “in”, but the odds are much greater than trying to pitch us something completely fresh, as a novel.

By submitting the form below, you give 1889 Labs and its partners rights to use the contents in any way they see fit. Don’t worry: we won’t steal your ideas and turn them into books. If they’re amazing, we’ll hire you to write them for us.