As publishing printed books has become less profitable in general, the hybrid model of publishing has gained a great deal of traction. With a hybrid publishing contract, the publisher and author share the various costs of producing the final book - e.g. editing, proofreading, cover design, printing et cetera - so that the risk of publishing the book is reduced for the publisher. Obviously, the author is now also taking a financial risk if the book does not sell, but because of this will also expect a higher royalty.

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Our Hybrid Deal submission process is the same as for the Traditional Deal,  except for point 4:

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1. You (or your agent) will need to send us by email:

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• A query letter of no more than two A4 pages which must include your "Elevator Pitch" and what books, if any, you've had published before. If you are a new author and the MS you are sending is your first, please say so.

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• A synopsis of your whole book in no more than three A4 pages.

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• Your complete Manuscript ("MS") in Word format (.docx).

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• An up-to-date résumé/CV if your book is non-fiction, which shows your qualifications/experience in your book's field (e.g. you have written a book about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and you hold a first-class BA(Hons) degree in the History of Art and your résumé shows three teaching posts over 15 years). If your MS is purely fictional, this is not necessary. 

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2. We will ALWAYS read your query letter. If that sounds appealing we will then read your synopsis. Similarly, if that intrigues us, we will read part of your MS - usually the initial three chapters - and subject to our continued interest, we might go on to read the entire MS. 

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3. If we are not going to make you an offer, we will normally send you an email telling you how far in the process outlined in point 2 we got to and briefly why, if time allows. This will give you some indication of why we have rejected your MS and how you might be able to present it differently in future.

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4. If we like your book and believe it will sell (this is our most important consideration as we are a business and businesses must make profits to survive) then we will email you stating:

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• If we can take your MS as it is or if it needs more work from you first (e.g. your plot needs editing to make sense).

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• If we can offer you a Hybrid Deal or not. If we can't, we'll tell you why and we may quote you for Self-Publishing if we think that may be appropriate. 

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• What deal we are willing to offer you. This will detail all of the work that needs to be done (e.g. editing, proofreading, typesetting, cover design, printing et cetera) and what proportion we are willing to cover and what we will expect you to cover. This may be 50/50, 75/25 or some other split depending on what needs doing and what sales of your book we would realistically expect. Your split of the net royalties (i.e. after distributor/bookshop share) would normally be the same as the cost split (e.g. if you pay 50% of the book production costs you will get 50% of the net royalties) but this may vary on a case by case basis. We will explain all of this in a video meeting if we are prepared to make you an offer.

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Our turnaround times will vary according to how busy we are in terms of submissions, but we will try to reply to you within 6 weeks if we can.

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