Spectrum Press does not publish books on paper, and we do not accept submissions on paper.
Spectrum Press publishes books for the computer screen, our current list including nearly 300 titles. Beginning in 1996, in addition to books on disk for IBM and Mac, we are also delivering complete books by E-mail to any E-mail address in the world.
We offer a standard publishing contract with royalties on all sales. Authors retain print rights for sale elsewhere. At the present time, all contracts are for non-exclusive electronic rights only. Our current royalty rate is 30% of the retail price of the work.
We are interested in looking at the work of authors with new voices and new attitudes. Of particular interest to us are the following: literary and avant-garde fiction, poetry, drama; criticism in any of the arts (film, drama, fiction, etc.); fiction and poetry translations from other languages; all forms of quality erotica (heterosexual, gay, and lesbian), lesbian fiction and nonfiction; feminist and women's studies nonfiction; African-American fiction and nonfiction; politically left nonfiction.
All nonfiction and fiction, including collections of short stories, should be book-length, which means at least 40,000 words (230K).
Always send text that is proofed and edited. Do not worry about computer formatting of the text -- we do that. If possible, do the text at 65 characters per line, 5 spaces paragraph indent, single spaced. Special characters, such as bold or italic should be bracketed by asterisks, viz., *special characters*. Send the entire book as one file.
We also publish for the computer screen works previously print-published, and some of the contemporary titles on our list are in this category, e.g., we have subsidiary rights contracts with print publishers. If you have a print book published, and you think we might be interested in it, query us.
E-mail queries: If you have an E-mail address, an E-mail query to us is simple and economical. We will usually reply within a day or two. Our E-mail address for queries and submissions is Specpress@earthlink.net
You might also be interested in our website -- it contains a complete descriptive catalog of all our titles: http://users.aol.com/specpress/index.html
Disk submissions: -----------------
1) PC (IBM compatible) disks: Any size, DD or HD, will suffice. Our preferred PC format is plain ASCII text. Do not send Microsoft Word files, as they are always difficult to handle. Do not send Windows files.
2) Macintosh disks: The Mac disk must be 3.5" HD and formatted as HD. The files should be plain text files.
Query us if you need more information about disk submissions. We usually reply to disk submissions within a few weeks.
Send all disk submissions to: Spectrum Press, 3023 N. Clark Street #109, Chicago, IL 60657. If you want the disk returned, send a self-addressed stamped envelope. Foreign authors: it's too much trouble to convert International Reply Coupons, so please don't send them.
E-mail submissions: -------------------
Send all E-mail submissions to Specpress@earthlink.net only. The file must be plain ASCII text. It can be a ZIP file. We usually reply to E-mail submissions within a few days.
PLEASE NOTE: At the present time we are no longer accepting submissions on paper.
THE EDITORS (Daniel Vian, Joan Hartman, Karen Olsen)
August 15, 1996
Writers Guidelines for Spectrum Press Erotica =============================================
1) Style and diction should be "high-toned". Use coarse language only sparingly, and only in dialogue. It's imperative to read some of the erotica we publish in order to get an idea of what we want. We do not want pornography, we want erotica -- sensuous writing with high sexual tension. If you lack grammatical skills and are weak in fiction technique, we probably will not be interested in your work. We are primarily interested in full-length novels, at least 300K of ASCII text. Historical and exotic locales are preferred, but they must feel authentic.
2) Taboos: Sex involving minors; bestiality; extreme physical S/M; excessively gross sexual activities; anything which demeans minority groups, people of color, gays, lesbians, etc.
3) Prose models: Emmanuelle Arsan, Anais Nin, Alexander Trocchi, Jocelyn Joyce, Peter Anselmo, Claire Baeder, etc.
4) Storyline categories: There are really no restrictions (except good writing), but it's best to have the book fit one of the following categories:
Heterosexual: in this category the focus is on heterosexual sex, but other types of sex may be also involved in the story in a minor way.
Lesbian: the only sex is female/female -- best without any male characters.
Pansexual: All the above types of equal importance in one story.
At the present time we are not interested in exclusively gay male erotica.
5) If we publish you, we will pay our usual royalties, and you will retain all print rights for print publication elsewhere.
Query us if you need more guidance. You can send all or part of your work to Specpress@earthlink.net We usually reply to email submissions within a few days.
The Editors Spectrum Press Specpress@earthlink.net (all queries and submissions) Drop by their home page by clicking here. Return to Home Page Return to Main Market Page