Summertime Publishing specialises in books by and for people who live or have lived overseas
The 2012 list is almost full!
CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR AUTHORS TO WRITE FOR QUIRKY, USEFUL, ‘LIVING AND WORKING IN’ GUIDES FOR POTENTIAL AND CURRENT EXPATS AND TOURISTS WHO WANT TO GET UNDER THE SKIN OF A PLACE, IN OTHER WORDS, FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO FEEL AT HOME.
In 2011 we published 15 books. Some of our authors contribute to the costs in order to vastly increase the royalty they receive, some don’t.
We can publish 12 books a year from contributing authors.
But only commission six books per year from non-contributing authors, so we are very picky about the books we choose…
Successful authors will need to be:
- Expats themselves or have overseas experience
- Connected with an existing following/fanbase/subscriber base or established blog. Authors will already have a website, a blog, a Facebook page and Twitter account. Their website needs to get over 3,000 hits a month.
- Happy to get out there and network, to promote their book, do talks perhaps and sell their book at the back of the room.
- Able and willing to write articles relating to their book.
- Resourceful and prepared to “front” their book and back it up with interviews, debates and appearances both on and online.
- Able to write well, in English.
- Can guarantee that they will be living amongst the people who are in their target market (so in Spain if the book is about Spain, working in international schools if their book is for international kids) for at least two more years.
Successful books will need to be:
- Perfect for readers who live abroad, have lived abroad or who are thinking of doing so
- Original
- Fulfilling at least one of the following: inspiring, informative, supportive or entertaining
- A good idea
- Focused
- Non-fiction preferred though fiction may be considered
What we offer:
- Royalties of at least 15% (rising to 60% if you contribute towards costs)
- The ability to increase your royalty percentage by contributing to our costs
- Inclusion in the expatbookshop at www.expatbookshop.com
- A PR campaign during the first weeks of your book’s launch
- Personal support with your PR, blog tour and booksigning efforts
- The ability to make even more money buy buying back and distributing your books yourself to your local market, benefiting from massive discounts
- Your personal input into the book’s layout and cover design
Submission Guidelines
If it’s any good then there’s a very good chance that your book has already been rejected by mainstream publishers. This may be because mainstream publishers use bookshops as a route to market and there is no expatriate or living abroad section in a bookshop. We promote our books online and market specifically to expatriate publications, websites, groups and bookshops. We avoid traditional routes and go, instead, directly to the people who love to read books about living and working abroad. If your book is not quite right for this market, or your idea not quite ‘cooked’ then we will tell you. Be prepared for rejection. As we say, we only publish six books a year. Only submit your book for consideration if you can handle rejection.
We Will Consider Books On…
- How to …
- It happened to me …
- Memoir
- Expatriate issues, such as identity, loss, resilience, unresolved grief, repatriation
- Fiction that is about people who live/work abroad
- Living in (a country)
- Working in (a country)
- Anthologies
- Humour
- Blooks (blogs that become books)
We Do Not Publish…
- Anything that does fit the guidelines above, unless you can persuade us differently.
Book Proposal Submission
The Book Proposal Submission process begins here. We aim to reply personally to ALL enquiries within 4 weeks of receiving them.
In the first instance, please contact us by email, using the form below:
Simply complete the form below and submit to us:
If we like your idea then we will ask you to submit a proposal, table of contents and at least one polished chapter and will send you our guidelines for submission.
Thank you
