Guidelines for submitting your work
What we need from you...
SilverWood works with well-written manuscripts and pro-active authors who'd like to benefit from our support and professional expertise. In order to maintain high standards we are increasingly selective about the work we take on and we review each manuscript thoroughly. This means you should allow up to 10 working days for initial feedback. All submissions should be emailed to Helen Hart, SilverWood's publishing director.
Please supply your text as follows:
- As a single Microsoft Word document. We will then import the text into professional page layout software for typesetting.
- Please ensure all content is presented in the order in which you expect it to appear in the final book.
- Where appropriate, please include a title page and author name, dedication, acknowledgements and/or table of contents. (The page numbers can be left out of the table of contents, however, as these will almost certainly change once the book has been professionally typeset.)
- If you are submitting a novel, please indent the first line of each new paragraph, and leave a double line space for a scene break (with or without a centred asterisk, according to your preference).
- If you've used footnotes or endnotes, please correctly format them using the footnotes/endnotes tool in Microsoft Word or Apple's Pages.
- If possible, please insert a page break at the end of each chapter, or after each poem. For preference, please don't use repeated returns, but instead select Toolbar > Insert > Page Break.
- Please number all pages using auto-numbering. Select Toolbar > Insert > Page Numbers.
- Please save the file with the title of your work and the word 'text', eg BookTitle-text.doc.
- Send to SilverWood as an email attachment or, if the file is large, use a free file sharing service such as WeTransfer or Dropbox.
Please supply your images as follows:
- Separately and not embedded within the text document (as this can degrade the resolution of the image).
- As print-ready JPGs scanned at a minimum of 300dpi, A5 size or larger (A4 or larger for children's books).
- CMYK if the images are to be used in colour. Please do not use gradients in any illustrations as experience has shown that these do not always print well.
- Greyscale if the images are to be used in B&W.
- Each image file named in such a way as to identify the order and position in which images will appear in the book, eg 001-AuntyMary.jpg. This way it's clear to us that 'Aunty Mary' will be the first picture in the book. The second picture in the book will be labelled '002', the third '003' etc.
- Please also supply a separate list of all images, and any helpful notes about their placement within the text, plus the wording for captions where relevant.
- Send all content as email attachments if the files aren't too large, or via a free file sharing service such as Dropbox or WeTransfer.
- if you prefer, we can scan your original images from photos or negatives although there will of course be an additional charge per image. Original images larger than A4 may require an A3 scanner or individual photography, which is priced separately. Please always include an SAE with adequate postage for safe return of your originals.
The small print:
- Please ensure that any content you supply is your own original work and that you own the copyright for any images you supply, or that you have written documentation of permission to use copyrighted material. If you have commissioned illustrations or other images, your contract with the illustrator, photographer or other supplier should outline the terms of your use.
- Please take careful note of the submission guidelines above. If we receive your files in other formats, we may not be able to open them and begin work on your manuscript and you may be asked to re-submit, or to pay for the additional costs of correcting or re-formatting files.
- We are selective about the work we take on in order to maximise your chance of success in a crowded marketplace. This means work intended for publication and distribution into the trade should be of a high standard.
- Copy-editing and proofreading are offered by SilverWood as separate services and, although optional, are always recommended before publication.
“If you’re thinking of self-publishing, I hope you don't go at it alone. With a team like SilverWood behind you, you have the support you need to publish the best work you believe in.”
