At Bay Press is a literary publisher. We are only interested in literary fiction and literary non-fiction—including poetry. We do publish literary mysteries, thrillers, and noir and are interested in quality submissions in the science fiction, fantasy and graphic novel genres as well.
At Bay Press will occasionally accept art submissions for our books, should there be a requirement. We also consider black and white art plate submissions for our “From the Heart” series (see “From the Heart” series submission guidelines below).
We are interested in seasoned as well as new writers.
Our books cover a wide range of subjects and styles, so if you are interested in submitting to us, we recommend you buy/read books published by At Bay Press as well as browse our catalogue of publications.
At Bay Press has partnered with CanSubmit. All submissions must be submitted via our CanSubmit portal (details on how to submit through CanSubmit are found below). All paper submissions will not be reviewed and will be recycled.
Please read to the end of this section before submitting your work to At Bay Press. Submitting a manuscript to At Bay Press is a professional correspondence. We create guidelines to make our expectations clear and to help us review your submission.
We will review unsolicited complete manuscripts. However, submissions of this kind must be exclusive submissions. If yours is a multiple submission, please indicate as such in your cover letter. If your manuscript is being seriously considered for publication, we will require a period of exclusivity before continuing to assess it.
Please include a one page cover letter. Tell us who you are and why you are submitting to At Bay Press. Please list any relevant publication credits. Please be specific about the credit(s) and include titles of work(s) published, journal/magazine/book edition(s) and publication date(s). You may include a formal writing CV. Please include a synopsis of the manuscript, but it must be limited to one page.
Completed manuscripts only, typed at a minimum 12 point serif typeface such as Times.
Submitted using Microsoft Word only. For graphic novels PDF’s are acceptable for review, but a Word.doc file will be requested for the text if we pursue publication.
Please set your Word.doc page to 8.5 x 11, double-space the text, and indicate paragraph breaks with an indent.
Number all pages and put your name and address on all pages.
Poetry manuscripts should be a minimum 70 pages. Please submit the complete manuscript.
We are currently open for submissions for our “From the Heart” series. The focus of this series is to bring short works to the trade in a small, well designed, inexpensive book format. We are accepting short poetry collections (minimum 5 poems, maximum 10 poems per manuscript), literary short fiction stories, genre fiction short stories, non-fiction short works, short essays, graphic novellas etc.
Ideally, the text should embolden the theme of the series title “From the Heart”. In short, work submitted would be emotionally themed. Some examples could be: passion, health, loss, friendship, sympathy, celebration, birth, death etc.
Visit the books section of website and see examples of previously published work in the series.
At Bay Press will take your submission seriously (your writing may be exactly what we are looking for),. Please be patient. Reviews take time.
We will endeavour to reply to a submission within six months. If you are concerned about the status of your submission, send us a short note by email. Please don’t phone or fax us about your submission.
If your manuscript is being seriously considered for publication you will be notified, but a final decision on whether or not to publish may take an additional 2 to 3 months after our initial reply to your submission.
At Bay Press is committed to reducing our carbon footprint. We are excited to be offering an electronic submission process to artists and authors. Our press also recognizes the expense that comes with traditional paper submissions and we are thrilled to be able to significantly reduce that expense for creators. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to submit via CanSubmit.
1) You must create a CanSubmit account in order to submit to At Bay Press. CanSubmit accounts can be created using this weblink:
2) Click on the “Register” button.
3) Complete the registration information and click the “Register” button.
4) You will receive an email confirmation with a link to complete your sign up.
5) Once you have successfully created your CanSubmit account, logon and then select At Bay Press as the publisher you’d like to submit to.
6) Complete the brief questionnaire.
7) Upload your manuscript.
8) Click the Submit button.
9) You will receive an email confirmation of your submission.
10) Please allow a few months for our submissions team and editorial department to review your submitted work.
Please note that the maximum files size allowable within the Cansubmit parameters is 128MB.
*You may refer to this great CanSubmit tutorial video located here: CanSubmit tutorial video
