Submissions
We publish ...
• Serious esoteric and occult books with a focus towards the Western Esoteric Tradition, ritual magic, Faery, Arthurian/Grail traditions and ancient sites. We cover both paganism and esoteric Christianity.
• Non-fiction including works of historic interest, and serious horticulture books with an emphasis on ecological and sustainable gardening, which should be innovative and inspiring.
Please note that although we have an extensive literature list, we are not currently accepting submissions of fiction or poetry scripts.
We DON’T publish ...
• Mainstream fiction, genre fiction (thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy etc) or children’s books.
• Popular mind body & spirit, new age, conspiracy theory or self-help books.
• Coffee table books or books with extensive content in colour.
We publish full-length books (over about 100 pages). The high cost of colour printing makes full-colour books unviable for a small publisher like us, so although all our books have colour covers we're only likely to accept scripts which can be printed in black and white on the inside.
We're not currently issuing our titles as ebooks because our core activity is very much within the printed book trade (don’t believe what you read about the death of the printed book – we think they have a strong future).
It’s our general policy to use British English in all our books.
Although we are small, there are many positive things about publishing with Skylight: we are independent, self-sufficient, solvent and thriving. We have a different ethos from many big publishers and our support of quality writing goes beyond simple profit factors. We have worldwide distribution which ensures that our titles are listed on all the major bibliographic databases and available to the book trade in the UK, US, Australia and many other countries. We believe in supporting independent bookshops and our titles are frequently stocked by the Atlantis Bookshop, Treadwell's and Watkins in London and by Courtyard Books and Labyrinth Books in Glastonbury.
Submitting your work to Skylight
All submissions are assessed solely on their merit and suitability for our list. Please have a look at the kind of work we do and consider whether your work fits our remit before submitting to us. Prospective authors should be aware that we don’t have the resources for major advertising and marketing campaigns, and we trade on a more modest principle: our reputation for quality of production and content. Some first-time authors have unrealistic expectations about their sales potential – if you want to be a famous bestselling author you might want to try elsewhere. Our royalty rate is pretty decent but please note we can’t pay advances.
Our purpose is to support and nurture good writing. We are not looking for mainstream commercial work, nor do we want clones of bestsellers. We’re seeking quality books with imaginative and intelligent writing. Our esoteric list centres around what Dion Fortune called "sane occultism" – good, responsible writing that adds something new to the topic.
Email submissions are strongly preferred; physical scripts may not be read. Please submit either sample chapters or complete scripts to skylight.press@gmail.com for consideration. If you want to tell us a little bit about yourself that’s great; we don’t need a full CV or a marketing pitch. Our literature lists are closed at the moment and novels/poetry scripts can't be considered at present.
While we accept submissions from agents, you don’t need an agent in order to submit to us, and neither are agented authors treated with priority. Occasionally some writers get their friends to pose as agents in the belief that it will make us take their work more seriously. Please, save yourself the bother. It doesn’t fool us and we’d much rather you were honest with us.
Submissions received as part of a bulk-mailing to multiple publishers will be regarded as spam, including those that come from so-called submission services. Then again, the kind of people who submit their work in such a manner are unlikely to be reading these guidelines. Ho hum.
Please be aware that we are a tiny publisher producing only a small number of books each year, and often working at full capacity. Sometimes family emergencies and other life events have to take priority over our publishing activities. We currently have a backlog of work to complete and will be accepting only a minimal number of new submissions during 2020 and 2021.
Freelancing
We do all our own design, editing and proof-reading work in-house, and regret we can’t offer any opportunities for freelance or placement work at the moment.