Types of Submissions Casperian Books Accepts

Casperian Books accepts electronic submissions of novel-length fiction only.

Submission Rules

1. Casperian Books DOES NOT accept simultaneous submissions.
   
2. Casperian Books DOES NOT accept book proposals or queries for partially written/unfinished manuscripts.
   
3. Casperian Books DOES NOT accept unsolicited manuscripts (but we DO accept query e-mails according to the guidelines below).
   
4. Casperian Books DOES NOT accept snail mail queries.

Querying Casperian Books

Please make an initial electronic inquiry following these guidelines:

1. Review the About Casperian Books and Questions & Answers pages of this website to familiarize yourself with Casperian Books and the services we can and can't offer. You may also want to review an interview about the submissions process we gave to Duotrope.
2. Check out our catalog and read some sample chapters/books to get an idea of the writing we are looking for.
3. Write a cover letter that includes a) a clear and concise 2-3 paragraph summary of your story, b) your ideas for marketing/promoting the book as well as its target audience, c) your publishing history, and d) your contact information, and paste it into the body of an e-mail.
4. Below your cover letter, paste the first 5,000 words of your manuscript in plain text format.
5. Do not attach files to your query. We will not open attachments.

Send your e-mail inquiry to . If you follow the guidelines, you will receive a response within five business days.

Tips for a Successful Query

1. Make sure your e-mail is in plain text, not html.
2. Replace all "special" Word-type characters (e.g. curly quotation marks, em-dashes, etc.) with plain text before pasting them into your e-mail.
3. If you are citing publishing credits in your query letter, please include links to books/online journals (if available).
4. If you have read one or more of our books, please mention it in your query letter.
5. If you have more than one completed manuscript you wish us to consider, write one query letter with a short synopsis of each book. Do not include the 5,000 word sample. We will request a sample of the manuscript we are most interested in.
6. Be sure you have the following items written and handy in case we ask for them: a 2-3 page synopsis of the manuscript, a timeline for your novel, a detailed self-promotion/marketing plan (you'll need it!).

What's Next?

If we do not reject a manuscript based on the initial query received, we will respond with some questions to begin a dialogue with the author and explore synergies. This dialogue, a kind of "interview" if you will, is at least as important as the manuscript sample in deciding whether we request the full manuscript. We never solicit complete manuscripts based on the initial query letter.

If we do decide to read the rest of the manuscript, we request a hard copy, which should be formatted to match our manuscript formatting guidelines at least loosely (complete adherence to the guidelines isn't necessary at this point, however, we refuse to read manuscripts set in pink all caps...). Our estimated manuscript review time varies depending on workload; it is usually anything from a couple of weeks to a couple of months.

Once we (conditionally) accept a manuscripts for publication and a contract is entered into, the real work begins. A general timeline for the entire publication process can be found in this blog post. Usually, the entire publication process from contract signature to release date on average takes twelve months.

Further information can be found on the Questions & Answers page.