We are once again in a position to consider novels/series. Please read the specifics for submission details.

TANSTAAFL Press welcomes submissions from both published and unpublished authors. However, please carefully follow the guidelines below. Any submission or material that doesn’t meet these guidelines will be destroyed unopened. TANSTAAFL does not return any material sent unless previously negotiated.

Novel Guidelines:

TANSTAAFL Press publishes only fiction. We are currently looking for (in decreasing order of interest): military SciFi, time travel, alternative history, mystery, historical fiction.

We will consider exceptional works in other genres of fiction or short story compilations if somewhat related to SciFi or Fantasy.

All submissions must be single emails to tgondolfi@tanstaaflpress.com

NOTE: We apologize to all who sent emails to a previous email address. We lost access to that email some time ago and forgot to update this guideline.

All attachments MUST contain the submission title, the author’s name, and the author’s contact information (email as minimum)

All emails should contain a cover letter describing your writing history, what you are intending to accomplish with your work, and what you want out of a publisher.

Submissions must contain a TEXT document containing approximately the first 2000 words of your work.

Any work that starts with or has as a major plot point a dream sequence OR has a prophecy as a major plot point will be rejected with no response. Works containing wereanimals or vampires are unlikely to be published unless specifically requested.

Submissions must contain a 300-500 word summary of your work.

TANSTAAFL Press accepts submissions that are sent at the same time to other publishers.

Novel Submission Responses:

TANSTAAFL Press does not guarantee a response.  We will respond only as we feel necessary based on the work submitted and what our business plan and resources dictate.

We reserve the right to reject your submission if you don’t follow our guidelines.

All responses will be direct replies to the emails originally sent.  This of course means you have to check your email.

We are diligent at TANSTAAFL Press, however, a large number of submissions can mean a delay in reading your submission. However, if you do not hear from us within 30 days, assume that we have, for whatever reason, chosen not to pursue your work.

Below you will find a link to our boilerplate contract. This is the starting point (not necessarily the ending point) of any negotiations. We have examined many “pro-writer” and “pro-publisher” contracts and have put as many of the former clauses and as few of the latter as possible.

Once we reach this point in our relationship, we ENCOURAGE you to seek legal advice on our negotiations!  Remember the name of our press – There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. We want a contract that not only feels fair to both parties but is fair!

We offer no upfront $$ and on the whole, we pay slightly under the market for any sales under 1500 but we pay significantly over the market for sales above that number.

Download the TANSTAAFL Press Publishing Contract here.

Some folks have asked, how long to get a book published! This will give you some idea. 

From acceptance of the completed manuscript, here are a list of things that need to be done. Many of them can be done simultaneously. Calculating all of the critical paths (not everything together), from the time TANSTAAFL Press agrees to publish a piece to books in hand, it is approximately 26 weeks.

We are not gouging the paying public. It goes back to our company name, TANSTAAFL Press – There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Roughly any book requires the following costs. We’ve shown the approximate costs assuming printing 1000 books. If that cost is a one time cost or variable we’ve estimated its cost spread across the 1000.

TANSTAAFL Press doesn’t use the cheapest bid for any job, as you get what you pay for, but rather journeyman quality (e.g. someone who is good at their job but who isn’t so good that they command top dollar).

Sales options:

Big box stores are obviously completely out as it is a percentage that will go up and we’d have to price our books at about $27.50 just to break even. That also doesn’t count RETURNS whichcould sink you faster than anything.

Retail markup is also out and also a percentage. We did do this in the early days, but the cost in time and energy to go to each store to get them to carry the books, restock, and losses because of book damage. Ended up pushing the costs and making it infeasible.

As most of you know, convention sales are our normal method of engagement. This amortizes all the convention costs, travel, and more into this $5, so technically we would be making about $4 per book in profit.

To sell a physical book through Amazon,  we have to remove the cost to print the book and ship it to us because we don’t have to buy it first. This would be our preferred method of purchase.

As bleak as these numbers seem, it shows that the first 1000 print books are at a loss, but when you factor out the one-time costs for a second print run you start showing a profit. Even this wouldn’t be good enough at our stated retail price were it not for the income of E-books. This allows us to hold down the cost of the print book.

Adding up all these costs will give you a quick look into the reality of print books. While some authors go electronic versions only, many readers are still traditional enough to want to hold a book in their hands and we cater to both traditional and E-book readers.