Editor Interview: History Through Fiction Press

Historical Novels

As a small independent press, I admire other small independents such as Scribe Publishing, CamCat Books, and Cardinal Rule Press.

As a Minnesota, I often enjoy reading books by other Minnesota authors. My favorites are David Treuer, Anton Treuer, and Louise Erdrich.

We're not looking for fiction that is simply set within historical time period. We're looking for fiction that is deeply rooted in a time and place, and one that is based on real events and people. It should be rooted in research and have an important lesson about the historical events and people it represents. Furthermore, our novels include reference materials that other fiction novels do not.

If you've never published a book before, we highly recommend hiring a developmental editor before submitting your work. For those who are more familiar with the process and standards, we recommend familiarizing yourself with the work we've already published.

An ideal submission follows all submission guidelines. Their email/query is short and to the point. Their synopsis is less than a page. Their sample meets industry standard formatting.

Submitters often write their query in a manner that suggests that they are doing us a favor by submitting their work. When submitting, don't be patronizing or overly grateful. Just submit your work and allow us to review it objectively.

We don't need to know much about you. A 50-100 word biography is plenty.

It depends. If it catches our attention, we read the entire submission. If it does not, we may only read the first few paragraphs.

If we like your work, we'll ask you to submit the full manuscript.

I work full-time outside of publishing. Therefore, during the day, I write various emails when and where I can. I spend my nights and weekends doing all the other work related to publishing. This includes blogging, podcasting, social media managements, reviewing submissions, editing manuscripts, marketing, website management, and so on.

It varies, but if your manuscript requires significant editing you will not be offered a contract.

Yes. We submit each one of our books to two or three book awards. We appreciate, but don't require, if our authors submit to additional awards.