Guardbridge Books

Submissions Paused

I currently have a big backlog of submissions, so Guardbridge is currently CLOSED to most submissions.

Exceptions: I would still look at Non-Fiction proposals, Science Fiction with travel to other planets, and work from authors in Asia, Africa, and South America.

I am behind due to a mixture of stress from the pandemic, political situation, time spent homeschooling my daughter, and several long expected sequels that have come in around the same time. It will probably take me a couple of months to clear the backlog. If you have already sent me something, I will get to it, please be patient. I'm sorry I have to take this step, but I need time to dig out from under the pile and get scheduled projects underway.

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Listed here are the open calls we are currently reviewing. You are welcome to submit material that fits these guidelines, just follow the submission procedure in the listing. We will also consider proposals for novels or non-fiction books. For novels, please send an e-mail containing a synopsis of your book (summary of the story including characters, plot, and conclusion), as well as the first few chapters (no more than 10,000 words). For other projects (non-fiction, novellas, stories) send a short e-mail outlining your idea and we will get in touch. Please do not send your whole novel unless we ask, and do not send physical copies.

There are no current anthology calls.
There are some projects under discussion for the future and I will post info on them when they come about. Best source for the latest information is to follow our facebook page or twitter feed.

Novels

We are always looking for good novels. We will consider unsolicited novels from unrepresented authors. Just be aware that this is a small company, so we can only publish a few items per year, and it may take a little while to read your manuscript since reading the slush pile is at the end of a long list of things to be done around here.

We pay an advance and royalties. Our advance may not be as big as the major houses, but we feel it is important that authors get paid for their work. Our royalties, on the other hand, are more generous than larger publishers offer, and we are willing to negotiate terms for subsidiary rights and such in a fair process. We view our authors as partners, and we are not out to take advantage of you (as some in the industry might try).

Please send an e-mail containing a synopsis of your book (summary of the story including characters, plot, and conclusion), as well as the first few chapters so we can see how you write (no more than 10,000 words, can be less). Send these to info@guardbridgebooks.co.uk . If we like what we see, we may ask for more.

We are interested in science-fiction and fantasy. We are particularly interested in trans-humanism, interstellar colonization, environmental problems, philosophical quandaries, innovative epic fantasy, fantasy based on non-western cultures, but not limited to those topics. We want quality writing addressing ideas in original ways. We are open to working with authors from anywhere in the world, especially from cultures which have been under-represented within SFF in the past.

We do NOT want the following:

Horror - The editor is not a big fan, and there are a number of small presses that specialize in that genre. So if your work falls primarily in that category, you are probably better off going with one of them. The boundaries of such categories are fuzzy, so some things like 'dark fantasy' might be of interest. If in doubt, just send a quick enquiry and we'll give you an opinion.
Young Adult - or middle grade, juvenile fiction, or other such terms. This field has rules all its own, and the Editor does not know them very well. So at this time we are not handling things which fall into that category. Once again, some cases may be hard to tell, just because a book could be read by a teen-aged audience does not mean it is YA or not of interest to older readers as well. If unsure you can ask, although I tend to err on directing you somewhere else.
Romance - We do not handle tradition romance novels. Speculative fiction that contains romance is fine. It is possible for a story to have significant speculative content as well as a romantic story line, in fact, we are editing one right now. But make sure the speculative elements are at least as important as the relationships. A romance with a little space flight tacked on as set dressing will probably not be of interest.
Christian or Inspirational stories - I have gotten a lot of these although nothing in the description of what I publish indicates this is one of my areas. Again, there are presses who specialize in such works; find one of them.