Submission Guidelines

Interested in being published by Quiet Fire Books? We are currently accepting submissions and, though we don’t promise a specific time frame, we will at least consider every manuscript we’re sent, so long as they adhere to the following guidelines:

  1. Please include a cover sheet, as outlined in this example.
  2. Please include a query letter with (A.) A brief introduction of yourself, (B.) Description of your story, the premise, main themes and that sort of thing–please keep it relevant, interesting, and under 500 words, (C.) A little bit about why you think Quiet Fire is the right publisher for you (give us a reason we should care about your story. Like, why do you care about your story, and why is it important?). Here’s a rough idea of what we’re looking for.
  3. Please include the first four chapters of your work. It is preferred that you submit your entire proposal through the mail (forgive us for preferring the dinosaur way of doing things), but if this is not possible please get in contact with us using our contact form with a brief introduction of yourself and your story (use the rough outline given in the previous bulletpoint, if you like), and we’ll get back to you with further instructions. Please do NOT submit your sample chapters through the contact form. If you do this, we will cut holes in all of your socks and pay your neighbor to blast “Slow Ride” at 2AM on a weeknight. Plus, we might not be as excited to read your work. Like we said, we’ll get back to you with more instructions–and you’ll find it easier to attach a PDF of your chapters to an email. Whether you decide to submit your chapters through the post or as a PDF through an email, please format your chapters like this example, which is in 12 pt. Times New Roman, double-spaced.
  4. We look for books that push the standards. That being said, there’s a word count range that certain readers like and might even expect in a given genre. Your book had better be pretty spectacular if you expect to keep us entranced for 100k, 200k or even 500k words. That’s not to say we’d automatically reject a book if you told us it was bigger than the Bible, but like we said, it better grab us. While we’re looking over your manuscript, we’re going to be asking ourselves in the back of our minds why it’s so lengthy, so as long as the writing itself answers that by being interesting, you’re good. So, if you’ve gotten rid of all the fluff and edited mercilessly and you still come out of it with 175,000 words? Alrighty then. If it grabs us and we publish it, you’d get major high-fives, but you’d be one of the exceptions. Same goes for shorter works: if you can tell the story and do it justice in 32,000 words, don’t add fluff to get it to 40k; we’d much rather publish the 32k version because readers can see through padded writing and frankly it sucks. But just as a general statement, we’re looking for books that stay between 40k and 80k. Longer (and shorter) works will be considered, because we really sort of like books of all shapes and sizes, it’s just that staying within the range gives you even more of a chance of having us publish you. Our general thoughts, regardless of manuscript length? If the first four chapters don’t intrigue us and at the very least make us think “there’s some stuff here that has some real potential,” we’ll have no choice but to send you back to the drawing board.
  5. As for genre, we pretty much prefer fiction submissions but will consider memoirs and some non-fiction (we’ve been known to take interest in stuff written by writers for writers, if you catch our drift). Our publishing structure is a little unusual, because really the genre we publish is “stuff we like.” We eat up YA stuff like peach cobbler, but we’re open to other genres and make decisions on a case-by-case basis–what can we say, we’re suckers for diverse books and authors! Bottom line–for us, it’s less about genre and more about the quality of your writing and the substance of your story/manuscript. So if you’re not sure your book is a fit, well, try it anyway. Anything with a healthy dose of sarcasm and sass is enough to pique our interest.
  6. If sending your submission through the mail, please include an SASE in your packet. This is mandatory.
  7. Finally, please be aware that we reserve the right to refuse any submission. But we’re cool about it.


Please send all submissions to:

Quiet Fire Books

Chelsea Vanderbeek

15 Dogwood Lane

Washington, NJ 07882


We try our best to respond to any and all submissions in a timely manner, whether accepted or rejected, but please be aware that we put a lot of time and effort into deciding whether or not a story is a good fit and we can’t give a definitive time frame within which you’ll get a “yay” or “nay.”

If you have any questions or concerns before you submit, feel free to get in touch with us on our contact us page and we’ll try to set you in the right direction.