Note: These are the submission guidelines for books of poetry. If you wish to have your artwork considered for showing in the gallery, please see those guidelines.
Submission Guidelines
We recognize that excellence can be produced by poets of all age groups, even the very young, and we seek to encourage the spread of that recognition through a focus on the merits of the poem as it stands alone.
Most of the books published by PKP are done by invitation of the press. We are, however, open to unsolicited manuscripts on a rolling basis.
With the exception of the Supernova Tadpole Editions series (edited by Gary Barwin), we no longer publish chapbooks. Supernova Tadpole Editions is not currently open for unsolicited submissions.
We no longer accept simultaneous submissions.
If you would like to submit, please take the time to familiarize yourself with the books on our list to make sure that your work is a good fit. Show that you know what we do and that you support it by buying one or more of our titles. Really.
To submit:
1. Buy a recent Paper Kite Press title. Read it. Enjoy it. Think to yourself, yes, this is the place for my manuscript, for sure. Include a copy of your at-least-one-month-old and less-than-twelve-months old receipt with your submission, and, let us know in your cover letter what you thought of the book you purchased and read. Yes, you really have to buy a book before submitting a manuscript. Submissions without a prior book purchase will receive no reply at all.
2. We prefer electronic submissions. Please send your full-length (80+ poems/pages) manuscript as one single document in one of the following formats (in descending order of preference): .pdf, .rtf, .txt, .doc). Please send just a cover letter, a title page (optional) and the poems. Do not send a manuscript with table of contents and/or previously published acknowledgments, and/or bio and/or back cover blurbs. Just the poems. We will acknowledge receipt of all manuscripts submitted by email. If you do not receive an email saying we received your manuscript, we didn’t (or, you didn’t) read item 1 above). If you are unable to submit electronically, please send a copy of your manuscript to 443 Main Street, Kingston, PA 18704 USA. If you would like confirmation that we received your snail mail submission, please include a self-addressed stamped postcard we can drop in the mail upon receipt.
3. It’s important for us to know if you are submitting a manuscript that is still being edited in any way (poems still being revised, or, decisions regarding which poems will and will not be included still being made). We love to help authors assemble manuscripts. We do not love accepting a manuscript based on its merits and then being told that its merits are shifting.
4. Please do not include a literary CV listing your previous publications or relevant experience. Please do not send us bio information with your manuscript. We publish poems, not poets. If you absolutely cannot resist the urge to squeeze in—some way some how—reference(s) to who you are, and/or where you and/or your poems have been published please understand that this will be a barrier the poems will have to overcome, rather than a help along the way.
5. If you would like your manuscript back, please enclose a large enough self-addressed envelope with adequate postage. If you don’t want your MS back, a small stamped envelope or e-mail address for our reply is fine.
5. Be patient. We try to respond promptly, but we do receive many submissions, so it may take us up to 4 weeks to get back to you.
What Our Contract and Acceptance Letter Looks Like
We are a small press that publishes nothing but poetry. Authors never, ever, pay a cent to have their work published by us. That’s not what we do. We’re also not the fast track to fame and fortune. Big bookstores have policies in place that make it impossible for a small press to participate in their model of distribution. To paraphrase bpNichol, the small press is the only real friend poetry has. And, further, the Independent Bookstore is the only real friend the small press has. So please support poetry by supporting your local independent bookstore.
In an attempt to help you decide if Paper Kite Press is appropriate for your expectations of being published, below are examples of our contract with authors and our acceptance letter, both of which spell out many of the details of our working arrangement with authors.
Contract
AUTHOR CONTRACT
Paper Kite Press is acquiring one-time rights to publish editions of the collection of poems entitled "Amazing Poems" from Author Name, who currently owns the rights to print (or reprint) all of the poems in said collection. Upon publication, all other rights (except the right to continue re-printing editions) revert to the author.
Book published will receive an ISBN#, be listed in Bowker’s Books in Print, and will have a first printing of 100 copies.
Of those 100 copies, 16 will be given to the author as payment.
Additional copies (of all PKP titles, not just your own) will be made available to the author for 50% below the cover price. This means that additional copies of a book with a $12.00 cover price will be made available to the author for $6.00 each.
Additional printings may occur, if both parties agree on the need. We prefer to keep all books in print wherever possible, but, make no guarantee that books will remain in print if sales do not justify re-printing.
ACCEPTANCE LETTER
Thank you for sending your manuscript, Amazing Poems. We have both read it, and discussed it, and would like to accept it for publication by Paper Kite Press.
Attached is a contract which spells out the basics of our proposal. If you have any questions on anything in the contract or not covered by the contract, please feel free to ask.
We're looking at [usually about 6 months out] for a publication date. This date, however, is approximate, and you should not schedule any events that depend upon you having books in hand until you actually have books in hand.
All we need from you at this point is to print out 2 copies of the contract, sign both, and mail them to us. Upon receipt of the signed contracts, we will sign one copy and return it to you for your records.
Some things you might want to think about [in the next approxmiately six months] when we'll be back in touch with you are:
Front and Back Matter: when we begin to do the book layout we'll be able to place any bio, acknowledgement, dedication, or blurb text you wish to provide.
Proofs: after your book layout is complete, a set of .pdf proofs will be sent to you to approve before the book is sent to the printer. Typographical changes and/or formatting corrections can still be made at this point. Content changes, however, can no longer be made.
While in print, books will be available for purchase through the Paper Kite Press website and through Small Press Distribution.
When it comes to people wanting to purchase copies of your book, we encourage you to sell to them yourself whenever it is convenient. If someone tells you that they'd like to buy a copy "later" you can refer them to either (or both) our website and spdbooks.org. Typically it's better for us if people buying one copy purchase it from us rather than SPD, and better for us if people buying multiple copies purchase them from SPD. So, if you are sure a person is only going to buy one for themselves, please send them our way. If you think this person is going to buy many copies (like a Lit professor for example), please send them to SPD. If you are unsure at all, and only want to suggest one place, it's best to suggest SPD.
Again, if you have any questions about anything at all, please don't hesitate to ask. We're looking forward to working with you on this project.
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