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Important - Please Read Before Submitting Sci-rotica publish e-books first and foremost. All manuscripts are released as an e-book first. If you only want to see your book in print either as a paperback or hardcover, we may not be the correct publishers for you. The majority of our titles will be released first as an e-book and then considered for print at a later date. However, we do not guarantee print publication even though we contract both electronic and print rights. If you want to retain either of these rights, we suggest that you do not submit to us. Online Submission Status Please click here to be find out how your submission is progressing Quality not Quantity Sci-rotica are investing time, energy and money into accepting only quality works and then creating name recognition for our authors. If you haven't yet read our Editorial Guidelines we suggest that you do so, prior to submitting. Be a responsible author - act professionally. That's what the large publishing houses expect and Sci-rotica expects no less. We want to recruit authors who write well and are professional in their working relationship with us, their publisher. In addition, we want authors who will grow as we grow, so that together we can make a name both for you and ourselves in the publishing industry. Please read the following submission guidelines carefully. Don't send us your manuscript full of typographical errors or formatted differently than outlined below. We have editors who will work closely with our authors, however, we expect the author to submit a professional representation of their work - not a manuscript that is full of inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies, misspellings or grammatical mistakes. That's a certain path to having your manuscript rejected. Sci-rotica want to sign great talent and we will not sign someone just to have one more author online. If you would like to submit more than one manuscript to us, please submit each one separately. Manuscript Format Note: If you have a question about formatting that isn't specifically stated in the list below, then you can use your own discretion. There is no need to query us for further clarification. * Your manuscript must be saved in Rich Text Format (RTF). No other file formats are acceptable. * You must use an A4 page setup (not Letter). * Margins should be 2.5 cm all around, top, bottom, left, and right. * You must use Arial or Times (Roman), 12 point font. No other fonts are acceptable. * Double space your manuscript. Use your word processor's double spacing functionality. * Use a 0.5 cm indent on the first line of each paragraph. Do not use tabs, or spaces to indent. * All sentences should be separated with one space only, not two. * Do not add hard (permanent) returns inside the paragraph. You must let your word processor flow the text within the paragraph. Do not justify the text. * Do not add extra paragraph returns between paragraphs unless it is a deliberate section break (see below). * For section breaks, skip a line, insert three centred asterisks (***) and skip another line. * Use italics instead of underlines for all text that is to be italicised. Never use bold and italics at the same time. * Use italics for: emphasis; foreign words and phrases (except proper names, buildings and institutions); names of books, magazines, plays and musical works. * Use two dashes (--) for an em dash. There must be no spaces in front or behind the em dash. * Do not use en dashes. Use a single hyphen for hyphenated words or an em dash. * Use three dots together (...) with no spaces, preceding, following, or in between, for an ellipsis. * Indicate dialogue with single quotation marks (‘ ’). Double quotation marks (" ") should be used to denote figures of speech or quotations within dialogue. * For a sentence that trails off, add the ellipsis at the end with no period. A question mark can be added after the ellipsis if applicable. * Use a dash (-) to indicate a sentence interrupted or terminated abruptly. * Spell with ‘s’ and not ‘z’ (realise, recognise). Use okay as opposed to OK; no one as opposed to no-one. * No apostrophes in phone, plane, bus, eighties, nineties, flu, 1920s, PCs etc. * Type titles (Mr, Mrs, Dr) and acronyms (capitals) without stops. * Do not use capitals for sir, madam, miss, count, duke etc (except when a title - e.g. ‘Sir Albert Hall’) * Use hyphens for composite adjectives (e.g. bitter-sweet, blue-green); do not use hyphens for ‘ly’ endings (e.g. ‘fully dressed’, not ‘fully-dressed’) or adverbs, except for ‘well’, ‘ill’, ‘new’ and ‘old’ when used before a noun (e.g. old-fashioned, well-known). * No embedded images. Many e-book formats do not support embedded images. Please make certain that your name and title of the work is in the upper left hand side of each page and the page number on the right hand side. These should reside in the 'header' part of the document. Number all pages consecutively; do not start each chapter on page one. Manuscripts received that do not follow our format strictly will be rejected without review. Cover Sheet Your manuscript must contain a cover sheet detailing the following information. Your full (real) name. Authors may use a pseudonym for their work, but we will need real names for contracts. All information will be kept in the strictest confidence. Attach the complete manuscript as a separate RTF file using a filename matching the title of your work. Thus the filename should be: title-of-your-work.rtf (i.e. my-novel.rtf). Include nothing else in the file name. If your manuscript is too long to send via your email account, divide it into two or more parts and let us know in the first email that there are more parts arriving. Do not send compressed files (ZIP/RAR) or self-extracting executable files (EXE) as we will not open them. Plot Synopsis In order for us to make a decision on your submission you must include a synopsis describing what the novel is about. There is no word limit, but it should be concise and precise. The purpose of a plot synopsis is to hook our interest! Make it as easy and enticing to read as possible. Remember, the synopsis must reflect the entire story, this means we must know how the story ends. Don't, for example, leave out the story's ending as a gimmick. You need to get the story essentials across, not the descriptive details or the exact dialogue, so write as clearly and tightly as possible. Create the synopsis as a whole, unified piece. Don't break it up with chapter headings (but see below). Imagine that you're telling your story to a group of friends. You won't have their attention for five hours, but you will for a few minutes. So convey the essential storyline complete with tension, pacing and character emotion. If you think it will help, you may include a brief chapter-by-chapter
outline at the end of the synopsis, i.e. tell us what happens in each
chapter with a sentence or two, summarising the most important events
that occur. Again, remember to focus on character motivation and the emotion
that propels action and lends a human touch to the storyline. What to Send E-mail your manuscript and synopsis as separate attachments to submissions@sci-rotica.com The subject line must be marked clearly as a submission like this: Submission: Title of Novel (i.e. Submission: My Novel). The body of your e-mail replaces a conventional covering letter and must contain the following information: Your full (real) name. Authors may use a pseudonym for their work, but we will need real names for contracts. All information will be kept in the strictest confidence. In addition, you must include a short paragraph synopsis describing what the novel is about. Indicate if your manuscript has been previously published, or has been edited by an editor. While your book will still be edited and proof-read, it helps us to determine the level of work required when scheduling and assigning editors. Please note, that the requested information listed above must be duplicated in the covering letter and on the cover sheet of the manuscript as they are separated during the evaluation and review process. Optional Information If you wish you can include a short biography with a notation of other published works, awards, etc. If your book is selected for publication we will ask you for this for our authors’ pages. Although not required at this stage, it is a useful place for noting your promotion and marketing plan for your book. Sci-rotica expect you to help take responsibility for and promote your book (it is your book after all) with word of mouth, soliciting reviews, etc. The first line of contacts is often family and friends, although you may have grander ideas! Sending your author web site link is also helpful if you have one (again, not required). If you have written or are planning a trilogy or longer, the first novel must be compete and Sci-rotica will want synopsis/outlines for all the remaining books in the series. However, if you write stand alone novels with the same characters and backgrounds these manuscripts can be presented as single submissions. Where to Submit E-mail submissions@sci-rotica.com using the subject line: Submission: Title of Novel (i.e. Submission: My Novel). The email service that we use has aggressive spam blocking capabilities that will block emails from ISP addresses on the spam blacklist. If you've tried to submit a query and received a notice that said your email was undeliverable, please send a plain text email to sci-rotica@s3-online.com and we will get back to you. What Happens Next? Once you send us your manuscript, we will acknowledge receipt by e-mail so that you have peace of mind knowing that your submission has been successfully received. This is an automated process and usually happens within 24 to 48 hours, but can be much sooner. Our editorial team will personally follow up as soon as possible after reviewing your submission. We do read all submissions; therefore your patience is appreciated. The estimated time when you can expect an answer from us as to whether your manuscript has been accepted for publication is usually 90 days, however due to fluctuations in submissions, the time could be shorter or longer. Please do not query the status of submissions; we will get back to you with a decision as soon as we can. However, since we understand that waiting for a reply can be an unnecessarily stressful experience, Sci-rotica uses a transparent review tracking system. When your manuscript passes initial formatting checks, you will receive an email with a submission number. You can use this number to track the manuscript thorough the review process. Your manuscript remains anonymous at all times unless it is accepted for publication. Further details of this scheme can be found in the manuscript tracking section. Please note that some manuscripts may not make it to the tracking stage if it is submitted in the wrong format, or obviously does not fit our editorial guidelines. If your manuscript is not on the list after 30 days and has not been formally rejected, please resubmit your manuscript paying careful attention to the editorial and format guidelines. Make sure you tell us that this is your second submission. All manuscripts go through our rigorous editorial review process. We're looking for well written, marketable and unique projects from authors who have a desire to become a well known name and are willing to work toward that goal. We will not accept every manuscript sent to us. Sci-rotica is looking for quality, not quantity. When we consider your fiction manuscript for publication we will look at the following criteria: The marketability of the title, your writing style and storytelling ability, your ability to "craft" the story (including plot, character development, grammar and punctuation) and a professional presentation. For non-fiction we consider your writing style, ability and subject knowledge, grammar usage, the usefulness and accuracy of the subject matter, originality of the presentation and market saturation. We are looking for interesting, well crafted books by authors who are willing to market and promote their work. Your manuscript will be competing with other works for space in our publishing calendar so make sure you've done everything you can for us to take notice. Further Questions? We have an extensive submissions Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section that should answer most, if not all of your remaining queries. You can also view a sample of our publishing contract before submitting your manuscript. Remember, you haven't committed to anything at the submission stage. If you still have doubts or questions that we haven't covered to your satisfaction within these guidelines, you can e-mail for further clarification or advice to: editor@sci-rotica.com Privacy Statement Sci-rotica never releases any personal information to third parties. All the information you provide is used in-house for the sole purpose of processing your submission. If you choose to write anonymously under a pseudonym, Sci-rotica will provide complete confidentiality. |
