FICTION

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are interested in any manuscript with a legitimate claim to literary excellence. If your manuscript has distinct characters, good ideas, and a clear voice — and, hopefully, some semblance of a real plot — we are happy to consider it. See the FAQ below for further details.

WHO YOU ARE

Stonehewer Books is committed to promoting the talents of authors in the early stages of their careers. To that end, we are particularly interested in emerging writers (which we define as writers of any age who have not yet published a book-length work of fiction), but will consider manuscripts from authors at any stage of their career. At this time, only Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada are eligible.

Our primary focus is novels, but we will consider short story collections. We do not publish children’s fiction or young adult fiction.

FAQ

What advice would you give potential submitters?

Make sure somebody else has read your work and that you’ve taken their notes to heart and revised accordingly. This is common practice among writers. Authors who have agents rely on those agents for a response and critique before submitting to publishers. Emerging writers sometimes participate in writing groups to get feedback. If that's not your thing, ask a trusted friend — or two — to read your work and give an honest opinion.

What does your ideal submission look like?

Good characters chasing meaningful goals in a fully realized world — with the twist of personality that only a dedicated artist can provide.

Why are the first 40 pages of a book so important?

Editors are chronically short of time. You need to grab our attention with a compelling storyline and memorable writing. If you can't achieve that in the first 40 pages, chances are most readers will give up on your book and reviewers will be hard on you. We aim to publish books that readers will want to finish.

Do I need a publication history?

Having short stories placed in respectable literary magazines is always taken as a good sign, but we are happy to publish someone with no publication credits if the work is good.

How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?

We like to get some sense of who the writer is. The cover letter has almost nothing to do with whether a submission gets accepted, but it is the first impression — if it’s poorly written or full of typos, you have us going into your submission with a negative frame of mind.

How much do you edit an accepted piece prior to publication?

Depends on the submission, but probably moderately-to-heavily. We are looking for gifted storytellers who come to us with a high-quality product, but there is always room to improve. While we do not have the resources to shepherd a writer through a total rewrite, if we are impressed we might give some advice and invite a resubmission at a later date.

HOW TO SUBMIT

We accept digital submissions of full manuscripts only. Please send an email to the address below with your manuscript attached. Include a cover letter in the body of the email — brevity is alright with us — telling us who you are and what if anything you have published. Please also include a short synopsis (no more than 100 words) of your book.

For the manuscript itself, we prefer a single MS Word (.doc or .docx) file in a readable format. Be sure to put your contact information and word count on the title page, and your last name and a running page count in the top right corner of every subsequent page.

We are not able to offer editorial feedback for rejected manuscripts, but we will do our best to let you know if we decide not to go forward. If you haven’t heard from us in 8 months, however, you may assume that we did not have a place for your manuscript.

We consider simultaneous submissions, but please do let us know if you agree to have your work published elsewhere.

Please send your submission to: stonehewerfiction@gmail.com

Thank you for your interest in Stonehewer, and good luck!