Most small presses have specific niches, and writers should carefully check out any press they’re considering to be sure it’s a good fit. At Ashland Creek Press, for example, we publish only environmental and animal literature—and yet we get so many submissions that have nothing to do with these themes. Or we get manuscripts about hunting and fishing, though we’re actually all about protecting animals, which is pretty obvious if you’ve spent just a few minutes on our website. Always take the time to explore a publisher’s website, check out the books they’ve published (Would you want to read them? Do you like how they look?), and be sure your book is a good match before submitting. You want your book to align with a publisher’s strengths not only to increase the chances of being published but most of all to successfully promote the book once it’s published. If a publisher doesn’t accept poetry submissions, for example, it’s not because they dislike poetry but because it’s not their area of expertise, which means they couldn’t do their very best for your project even if they were to publish it.
Another thing to know about small presses is that we are all limited in what we can publish—“small” for a boutique publisher refers to not only the number of books we can take on each year but to our budget and staff as well. So while we’d love to publish every book we like, we have to be very selective—and we hope writers whose submissions we decline will keep in mind that this has more to do with our limitations than the quality of their work. So don’t let rejections get you down—keep writing, keep submitting, and you’ll find the right home for your project.
—Midge Raymond, cofounder and editor, Ashland Creek Press