We will be accepting submission packages in the following fiction genres: horror, thriller, mystery, adventure, fantasy, romance, historical, science fiction, paranormal, YA and to a limited extent, children’s. We are particularly interested in cross-genre works.

Our non-fiction line is invitation only, however we will look at queries.

What we don’t accept:

We are not accepting any of the following: poetry, erotica, zombies, or bizarro. Submissions sent to us that are of these genres will be deleted unread, and without response. Our poetry imprint, Needfire Poetry, handles all poetry submissions. We have included a list of suggested publishers below who do read in the other areas.

• Erotica
  Ellora’s Cave – http://www.ellorascave.com/
• Zombies
  Library of the Living Dead – http://www.libraryofthelivingdead.com
  Permuted Press – http://www.permutedpress.com
• Bizarro
  Skullvines Press – http://www.skullvines.com
  Raw Dog Screaming Press – http://www.rawdogscreaming.com

Preparing your submission package:

First, let’s cover what we don’t want to see in your package.

Simultaneous submissions will be deleted unread, without response. If your manuscript is not complete, do not submit a submission package to us, simply query our interest with a synopsis.

Send only .doc or .rtf files – absolutely no other file types will be accepted. We work on Windows XP machines, and use MS Office. Do not send us .docx and claim it is the same thing, as the new MS Office is incompatible with our versions. Any non-requested file format will be deleted unread.

What we do want to see:

Make sure your sample chapters are formatted as listed below. There are specific reasons for this; for example, most new writers use far too much formatting, fancy fonts and ridiculous tabs and these create problems when formatting for print if the manuscript is accepted. But mostly, it’s for our own benefit – be gentle with our eyes.

We only accept submissions sent to submissions@belfirepress.com. All other contact information is listed on the website. We will notify you if we have received the submission successfully, however if you do not receive an email within 72 hours of sending the submission, query admin@belfirepress.com.

Now, a ‘cover letter’ in the body of the email. This should include the basic information: name, contact information, genre, word count/page count and title. Previous writing credits and biography are not necessary at this point.

The following should be attached to the email, each as a separate file.

• a brief synopsis (no more than five paragraphs summing up the entire book, please)
• the first three chapters (in one file not separately, and formatted as required)
• your ideas for promotions

Formatting:

Formatting your manuscript to our specifications will greatly improve your chances that we’ll actually read through the whole proposal. Trust me, we know there are those out there who think they are too great and wonderful to do so, and may call us elitist for asking for the simplest of tasks… however, as long as we’ve been in the trenches, we know better. We’re also happy to help if you don’t know how to format to these specs.

• The font throughout the proposal (except email) should be in Times New Roman or Garamond 12pt. Courier or Courier New is also acceptable, but less preferred.
• Margins should be set to 1″ all around; this can be changed in the File>Page Setup>Margins screen.
• All text (including chapter headings, break headings etc.) should be left aligned; first line indent and line spacing must be changed to 0.3 and 1.5 respectively. You can do this in Word by going to Format>Paragraph>Indents and Spacing. Do not use tabs or space bar to create the first line indentation. Punctuation should be followed by a single space, not double.
• No hard breaks between paragraphs (hitting return twice to break between paragraphs). Following paragraphs can be started on the next line.
• Scene breaks or changes in point of view need to be separated by a hard break, centered asterisks (* * *) and a hard break.

Things You Should Know:

This section may be updated at our discretion, at any time.

Belfire Press and the imprints The New Bedlam Project and Needfire Poetry, will no longer seek pre-publication endorsements or blurbs for cover or interior use on accepted manuscripts. If the author has previously received such materials and wishes to use them, that is fine.

2010 Submission Metrics:
Incl. invited works.

• In Queue: 0
• Processing: 0
• Processed: 34
• Holding: 1
• Accepted: 17
• Rejections: 16