Submission Guidelines

WillowTree Press, LLC is a small but traditional publisher. We pay royalties based on industry standard scale and acquire projects via an industry standard contract. Advances are negotiable. We use a mix of publishing technologies, whereby our flagship titles, which sell in large quantity, are printed by traditional means, warehoused, and wholesaled. A limited number of our niche titles are produced via POD, but are still wholesaled through normal channels (Ingram, New Leaf, Baker & Taylor, et al) at a standard discount with full return capability just like traditionally printed titles.

Being a small press, we are very selective about the authors we sign and titles we put into print. Therefore, it is best to have your agent contact us with a query. We will, however, accept unagented queries.

Please note that AT THIS TIME we are only accepting QUERIES. Do NOT send a manuscript or attachment. QUERY letter only.

Thank you

 

 

GUIDELINES

 

  1. As stated above, we are currently accepting QUERIES only.
  2. Genres published under the E.M.A. Mysteries Imprint include: Horror, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Supernatural/Paranormal, Dark Urban Fantasy.
  3. E.M.A. Mysteries does NOT publish literary fiction (this includes literary mysteries, etc.), hardcore science fiction, straight fantasy, general romance, erotica, coffee table books, or poetry.
  4. Queries for manuscripts which do not fall within the above genres will be discarded unread.
  5. Please follow standard conventions for drafting your query letter. If you are unagented and doing this yourself, please do your research before mailing the query. We receive numerous queries daily, therefore – If you do not receive a response other than the auto-responder message within 4 to 6 weeks, you should take that as an indication that we do not feel your project will fit with our catalog.
  6. All queries should be made electronically and sent to submissions@willowtreepress.com. Queries sent to any email address other than this one will be automatically deleted.
  7. Unsolicited manuscripts sent to our offices will be recycled unopened.
  8. Unprofessional queries of any type will be discarded unanswered. Some examples of unprofessional queries include, but are not limited to:

 

a. Poorly written cover letter. If your grammar, word usage, and spelling are lacking in the cover letter or email, we can only assume that your manuscript will be of the same inadequate quality. Actual example from a query letter we received: “I has wrote some books and I want you to…” Such demonstrations of grammar homicide will not score points with us.

b. Verbal/Telephone queries. You have been given the very simple guidelines above, and they should be relatively easy to follow. Calling us to “ask for a clarification of the guidelines” and then launching into a “sales pitch” to tell us how much your aunt Gertrude loved your story, or how wonderful you are only wastes our time and yours.

c. Claiming to be something or someone you are not. If we consider your work for possible publication we will check your resume, therefore you should make sure you can back it up. For example, if you are 23 years old there is no possible way you could be a Vietnam veteran. While you may think the aforementioned example is ridiculous, unfortunately, we didn’t make it up.

d. Threatening us and/or giving us a deadline. If you tell us something to the effect of, “You have two weeks to get back to me or I will have no choice but to send this to someone else and you will lose out,” then you’d better start sending to that “someone else” as soon as you drop your query in the mail/hit send, because we will be dropping the copy we receive into the recycle bin/trash.

e. Telling us you have several other publishers who are clamoring for your work but that you would really rather “allow us” publish it, or that you are going to “give us an opportunity” to publish your work. This is not a good tactic to employ, and will get your query the same treatment as outlined item d.