At Bella Books, we are committed to publishing books that reflect and celebrate the diversity of our lesbian, queer, bisexual, and gender non-conforming community—in all our glorious shapes, sizes and colors. We are calling for submissions from Black, Indigenous, and Authors of Color, as well as those who have historically been marginalized within the lesfic genre. Our desire to publish diverse voices is perennial. We don’t want to tell your stories for you—we want to amplify your voices.
At Bella Books, we believe stories about women-loving-women are essential to our lives—and so do our readers. We are interested in acquiring manuscripts that tell captivating and unique stories across all genres—including romance, mystery, thriller, paranormal, etc.
We are looking for exciting, fresh plots, with engaging characters whose complexities, struggles and triumphs celebrate their hopes and dreams.
We welcome your submission.
Our submission process requests specific information required for a thorough analysis. We will promptly acknowledge its receipt and let you know within 90 days if we are interested in pursuing rights and publishing your work.
To send in your manuscript you must follow the instructions below:
Your submission package must be e-mailed to submissions@bellabooks.com and should include the following:
Any further correspondence regarding your submission should be sent to submissions@bellabooks.com. Please do not inquire about the status of your submission or manuscript review unless the timeframes for our response (given above) have elapsed.
Your submission package and final manuscript should reflect your best work. We understand everyone makes mistakes, and rely on a team of editors and proofreaders, but we expect any submission to have a competent level of format, style and usage as reflected in the Chicago Manual of Style.
We consider a submission of a project to be an offer from the author to enter negotiations for a contract. That means that the person submitting it should have the right to do so, that no other publisher is currently considering its acquisition and that the rights we may wish to acquire are available. As a small press we can’t invest the evaluation resources only to find that the project is under contract or otherwise encumbered. For this reason, we cannot accept simultaneous submissions. If there is any issue with the rights to the manuscript you are submitting, please include an explanation of the issues in your cover letter.
The submission process outlined above is the only way your manuscript will be considered, and it applies to authors and agents alike.
Thank you for your interest in Bella Books. If, after reading this document, you have questions about the submission process, please direct them to submissions@bellabooks.com.
– Linda Hill, Publisher