Diversion Press

How do I get published?

There are no guarantees that you will get your book published by Diversion Press, but here are a few things that might help you along the way.

Be Patient. 

We respond to all queries, proposals, poetry submissions, and manuscripts.  We are a small press with a staff that works other full-time jobs.  The owners are full-time college professors.  We will respond to you as soon as possible.  Typically we respond within a week to proposals and queries, and within two to three months to full manuscripts, but often much quicker.  The response time on the anthology submissions is currently the slowest as we are gathering the entries before we make final decisions.

Be familiar with our submission guidelines.

*We do want a proposal (or cover letter for poetry), including biography and previous publications, for all categories of books.  The proposal can be sent by E-mail.  We do not return any materials.  We shred and recycle them.

*In most cases if we ask for your manuscript we will want one hard copy by mail.  If it is an academic work, we will ask for three copies so that we can send them out for peer review.

*We do not take simultaneous submissions and we do not publish previously published material (that means anything previously in print, online, E-book, website, etc.)

Be professional.

*If your proposal is full of errors or your purpose is unclear we will reject it.

*Include your real name and valid contact information, E-mail address, or two, phone number, and address.

*We will work with you primarily through E-mail.  Know this and check your spam filter and bulk mail if you are expecting to hear from us.  We will E-mail you with a rejection, acceptance, or revision.  If you send us something, we will respond to you.

*Contact us if you don’t hear from us in a timely manner.  Don’t bombard us with E-mail though. 

*Respond to our E-mail.  Be aware that sometimes E-mail we send does not reach you, we may be wondering why you haven’t responded.

*Take rejection well.  We reject the majority of proposals that come in.  We are most interested in quality, not quantity.  If you get rejected don’t take it personally.

*Be responsive to requests for revisions.

*Read and understand the fiscal policies at Diversion Press.

Before sending in your proposal or manuscript here are some other things that you should understand.  We read and hear about horror stories where publishers and authors start a relationship and just can’t get along.  Where did it all fall apart?  We want to be transparent and honest with our authors.  We have a reputation as educators and professors and want to carry over that positive attitude and honesty to our publish endeavors.  As an author you should research the publisher.  If, based on the things you find here about us (or through correspondence with us) it gives you pause you should--

Ask questions. 

If you don’t know something, please ask.  We are happy to answer questions.   If you are not satisfied, don’t send your stuff to us.  It is a real waste of everyone’s time if we read your book only to find out that you are not sure you want to publish with us or if you are not sure you will be happy working with us.  There are hundreds of publishers out there and thousands of authors.  We want to work with authors who are comfortable with us and our policies and who we are comfortable in promoting We will both find a match that works better. 

Know what we publish.

Full Length Books: 

Full length non-fiction (especially slice of life), academic works (not standard textbooks), and young adult books.

Short-Stories: 

Both fiction and non-fiction for our Anthologies, but not collections of short-stories by one author unless they fit into the children’s/YA category. 

Poetry: 

We consider up to five poems by one author for our Poetry Anthology, but not chapbooks or books by only one author.

Reference: 

We publish academic, and children’s, young adult reference books.

• We prefer books that are over 100 pages.
• Our children’s books are geared towards school aged children, or reading aged.
• Works in English only.

Know what we don’t publish.

*Full length fiction except for children’s and young adult. 

*Books of poetry.

*Board books or plastic books for small children.

*Most children's books.

* Books on religion, anti-religious, or evolutionary.

*Anything graphic, offensive, sexual, or that puts children in a bad light.

Understand our fiscal policy.

*We are a small press and can’t offer advances. 

*Our royalty base is competitive with other presses, especially other small and medium presses.

Understand our marketing policy.

*We intend to market our books, make as many sales as possible and provide regular, personal assistance to our contracted authors.

*We do offer our books at discounted rates to bookstores and other retailers, this is a pretty standard practice. 

*We do not, however, promise, allude to, or guarantee the amount of sales, success, or profits of your book.

Realize that we work via cooperative publishing.

*While we bear all the costs of publishing, we do expect our authors to do their part to market the book.  Find places to read from your work, offer book signings, attend book fairs, conventions, and other places that you can relatively easily and inexpensively promote your work.  If there is a place that we have not sent your book or that you would like to set up a speaking engagement, tell us and we will try to arrange it.  Inform us of all the things that you are doing to promote your book so we can, in turn, support you by placing it on the website and potentially offering some promotions.