SUBMISSIONS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED.
Thanks for your interest in being published by 404 Ink! At the moment, we are not currently accepting submissions.
Q: Why are you no longer open year-round?
A: As a two person team, we struggled to balance the volume of submissions we received against our workload, which caused a huge backlog. We’ve moved to select windows for a while to avoid this happening again and hope to return to open submissions year-round in the future. For now, it means we can accept books during quieter times, and get back to everyone in a far more timely manner. You can subscribe to our submissions mailing list for updates on this.
Submitting to 404 Ink:
We are not currently open for submissions, but expect to re-open in October in search of non-fiction. We will have full guidelines nearer the time, which will be available here and to subscribers on our submissions mailing list. Our guidelines from our latest window (seeking novels) have been left below to show generally what we're looking for in submissions.
If you want to be published by 404, we…
- Are interested in novels. We are open to most genres from literary fiction to crime.
- Do accept submissions without an agent, so don't worry! We do also welcome submissions via agencies, but we…
- Are not currently seeking: short story collections, graphic novels, and non-fiction (for this round), poetry collections, novellas, children’s books (middle grade and below).
We are particularly interested in debuts, and particularly welcome submissions from writers who feel their stories and voices are under represented in publishing.
To submit your work for consideration, please send the following in word documents (format .doc or .docx - not via Google Drive, WeTransfer or similar):
- The first three chapters or 50 pages of your manuscript.
- A one page (max) synopsis. We need to know the ending!
- A one page chapter-by-chapter run through of your book.
- A one page cover letter detailing your work, writing experience and the book’s potential readership. We want to get to know you, your influences, and why you think you and your book are a fit for 404 Ink.
Send your manuscripts and supporting documents to submissions@404ink.com. We aim to get back to everyone within six weeks of their submission. Please note:
- We do not accept postal submissions.
- We only read submissions that follow our guidelines.
- We can currently only read submissions within our submission windows.
404 Ink is the multi-award winning independent publisher, dubbed ‘the “Nasty Women” shaking up the book industry’. We’ve published titles including feminist bestseller Nasty Women, the short story collection Hings by breakthrough debut Chris McQueer, On The Edges of Vision and Mayhem & Death from Saltire Society award-winning Helen McClory, and The Last Days of James Scythe by acclaimed rock band Creeper.