BE SURE YOUR NAME DOES NOT APPEAR ON YOUR MANUSCRIPT. Our online form via Submission Manager will capture your contact information.
Submit a previously unpublished, full-length novel, novella, or short story collection in English.
Material in your manuscript may have been published previously in chapbook, magazine, journal, or anthology form, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished. You may include an acknowledgments page of previous publications if you would like to do so.
Please use a legible 12-point font. Please use 1-1/2 or double spacing. You may include a table of contents, acknowledgment page, etc. if you would like to do so.
Do not include artwork.
Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible.
You may submit multiple manuscripts, but each must be treated as an individual submission, submitted separately, and each requires an entry fee of $32.00 per submission. Each must have complete contact info, etc.
If you pay the entry fee but fail to submit your manuscript by the deadline, your fee will not be returned.
Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
In the event of a condition beyond our control (website down, internet down, power outage, or other extreme circumstances), the deadline will be extended and notice will be given along with the reason for the extension.
Due to the cost of running an independent press and the capacity of our small-but-mighty staff, it is a necessity that we charge submission fees for our reading periods. However, we do not want to exclude writers who cannot afford a reading fee, whose work is equally valuable and necessary in the world. We offer a limited number of fee waivers each reading period—as many as we are able, on a first come first serve basis. Please contact us (editors@fourwaybooks.com) if you need one, and we will provide it if we have not yet reached our cap. Thank you for sharing your writing with us.
Our preliminary readers are selected by the director of the press and are published writers, experienced editors, and/or writers who have received a graduate degree in creative writing or literature. We do not employ students to read manuscripts. Each manuscript is read by at least two readers. We rotate our readers seasonally so that those writers who wish to re-submit to Four Way Books can be assured that their manuscript(s) will receive fresh “reads.” Selections for publication are made by the publisher and director of Four Way Books.