Submissions

Types of Submissions We Accept

Before contacting us with your submission, please carefully review our submission guidelines. New Society Publishers receives many hundreds of submissions a year, of which only a tiny percentage are ultimately selected for publication.     

A large majority of the books we publish we either initiate ourselves or acquire through previous contact with the author, or with an organization with which the author works. However we sometimes publish manuscripts that are wholly unsolicited, and we welcome queries from authors, potential authors, agents, or organizations seeking a publisher or co-publisher.

Please note that while we do accept unsolicited submissions, we will only accept submissions that meet all of the requirements below. Submissions that do not include all of the requested elements will not be reviewed or returned.

Please understand that decisions to publish are complex and require much more time than do refusals. Please do not call us once you have sent us your proposal; we'll contact you as appropriate. — Thanks very much indeed for thinking of us!

Editorial Objectives

New Society Publishers is a progressive publishing company that specializes in books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society. We sell our books to a North America-wide market, using trade distributors in both Canada and the United States, as well as through direct mail and the Internet. We also have distribution channels overseas.

New Society Publishers also sees itself as a solutions publisher, providing ‘good news’ most of the time as well as clear analysis of the major issues we face in the struggle to create a more just and equitable world. Our emphasis is always inspirational, motivational, and skill-oriented. We don't publish books that merely catalog what is wrong in the world; we do publish books that show that we can take control over our lives and change the way things are — and which suggest how we can accomplish this. Although we believe that fiction, poetry and children’s books can play an important role in social change, they require different expertise and different marketing, neither of which we can provide; please do not submit such works.

For a better sense of what we like to publish, please carefully review our website, paying particular attention to the Key Topics listed on the “Books & Authors” page. You may also want to download a PDF of our most recent catalog.

What to Submit

The number of manuscripts we are actually able to read is finite. In order to increase the chance that your proposal will receive good attention and hence increase the chance that we'll publish it, we ask that you do not submit the entire manuscript until we ask for it, but rather send us the following:

  • an annotated table of contents
  • a sample chapter
  • a proposal which answers the following questions:
  1. In 300-500 words, what is the book about?
  2. What qualifies you, or gives you authority, to write such a book? (We are interested as much in experience as in formal degrees.)
  3. What other books in the field exist, when were they published, and how is yours similar or different? Will the world really benefit from expending finite resources in order to add another book on this subject?
  4. What aspects of your book are completely original? Describe how.
  5. Out of over 4,000 trade book publishers in the United States and Canada, why are you sending your proposal to New Society Publishers? How did you learn of us?
  6. Whom do you imagine to be the audience for the book? What do you think are the best ways to reach them? If you could have the book serialized or reviewed, what are the 5 or 10 most important publications in which it could appear?
  7. What help can you be in the promotion of the book? Organizational connections? Mailing lists? Workshops? Tours? (We are primarily interested in publishing authors who are prepared to help substantially with the promotion of their own books.)
  8. We sell books back to authors at a deep discount. How many of your own books do you think you might need initially, if any?
  9. What is the length of your manuscript? Provide a word count (many word processing programs can calculate this automatically).
  10. When do you expect your book to be completed? How much do you currently have written?

How to Submit

Electronically

Please send all e-mail submissions to: editor@newsociety.com

We are happy to receive submissions electronically, but they will only be reviewed if they meet all of our submission requirements above. In addition, if you are submitting electronically, please only submit files as a single attachment in Word or PDF format.

By Mail

Please send all mail submissions to:

New Society Publishers
Attn: Submissions
PO Box 189,
Gabriola Island, BC
V0R 1X0
Canada

Responses will be sent within approximately 6-8 weeks. Please note that we will not return a submitted manuscript unless specifically requested, and unless a self-addressed envelope is included with sufficient postage applied (or an international stamp coupon of sufficient value, if you are outside Canada). We cannot return materials for projects we reject that come without a SASE or equivalent. Rejected manuscripts and proposals will be recycled.

Please be patient; we are reading as fast as we can!