Contact Us and Submission Guidelines

Submission Guidelines:

Cosmos and Polis Press refuses to consider unsolicited submissions. Please, query first at info@cosmosandpolis.com, clearly indicating “Query: Title of the Book” in the subject line. We only accept electronic queries to the above address. No attachments will be opened, put all text in the body of the mail.

Unsolicited submissions or manuscripts sent to us without our approval will be disregarded and dropped in file 13. Upon solicitation we will get back to you after a maximum of two weeks, either to request the entire manuscript (we’re not so naïve as to expect you to give us exclusive review time), or to respectfully decline.

Query only with finished and proofed manuscripts; we won’t consider drafts, proposals, or concepts.

We don’t publish poetry, theatrical or screen plays, short stories, or children’s literature and non-fiction only to a limited extent (see below).

We are only interested in works with a cosmopolitan purpose, message, or concern. The by-no-means exhaustive list below should help clarify our interests:

• Literary and popular fiction set in multiethnic America, somehow contributing to the multiculturalism/melting pot debate and enhancing the understanding of cultural diversity in contemporary America.
• Historical fiction set among pre-1960 immigrant societies in America.
• Literary and popular fiction expounding the problems of nationalism and xenophobia and debating immigration, immigrants’ fates, and immigration laws worldwide.
• Literary and popular fiction dramatizing the relationship between Christianity and Islam, past and present, and promoting inter-religious dialogue; debate of the role of women in Muslim societies; or expanding on the compatibility or lack thereof of democracy and religion as fundaments of states and societies.
• Political fiction debating the concept of “the war on terror” from the perspectives of non-Anglo Saxon cultures.
• Literary and popular fiction and autobiographies debating “culture wars” in contemporary America (an autobiographic novel about the horrors of reparative therapy “treating” homosexuality would instantly jump to our top ten, for example).
• Investigative narratives spotlighting highly problematic rituals with a cultural aspect, such as female genital mutilation as in Waris Dirie’s Desert Children.
• Travelogues or autobiographical narratives from people engaged in international aid, humanitarian relief, or conflict resolution, bringing their work or the cultural setting in which they engage home to a wider audience.
• Literary and popular fiction, travelogues, and autobiographies familiarizing a wider audience with less reported on and often marginalized cultures such as Irish Travellers or Ashkali, for example.

Don’t hesitate to contact us if your work falls into these or similar categories. Before doing so, we suggest you glean as much information as you can from this website and encourage you to obtain at least one title from our portfolio to better familiarize yourself with our work and the quality standards we expect. If what you have learned meets your interest and approval, query us with:

• a one page cover letter pitching your book and telling us about yourself;
• a one page synopsis;
• a reading sample of the first, no more than 10 pages of your manuscript;
• and, this is essential, a one page marketing plan, in which you layout your thoughts about target audience, ways of reaching them, organizations suitable to align with your strategy, prominent authors to query for advance reviews, geographical focus of your promotion tour, etc..

Paste all the above in the body of the email and send it to info@cosmosandpolis.com. We eagerly look forward to hearing from you, reviewing your manuscript, discussing ways our unique business model will serve you in getting published, and to implement our mission with your book!