Adventure Books of Seattle

SPECIAL NOTE!

Adventure Books has temporarily closed submissions, queries, and manuscript readings for full-length books while we prepare to move from Lulu.com over to Lightning Source. Actual book sales will not be affected, and you may order books as usual. This closure will remain in place until at least September 1, 2008.

Short story submissions to the Escape Velocity Magazine remain OPEN.
See the EV site for details on submission requirements.
 

AB of Seattle publishes titles in paperback and hardcover.

We've expanded the descriptions below to assist authors on what we actually publish.

Before you query us or send your synopsis, study the categories and descriptions shown below very carefully.

We are fairly limited on what types of books we publish, so if your manuscript doesn't fit the categories shown, we cannot publish it.

Don't forget to check the hints on
'How to Write a Synopsis' near the bottom of this page. 

How to Submit: 
If your completed book falls within the genres listed below, you may submit a professional synopsis and a cover letter by email only to Book Submissions. Attach the synopsis to your email in either Word document or Rich Text Format.
Your cover letter would be in the body of the email. Do NOT mail us submissions. Those are returned unread (if you enclosed an SASE) or destroyed.

If we think your book is marketable and meets our criteria, we then ask for sample chapters and review them further. Hint: A good synopsis is how we base the majority of our decisions to see more from an author about their book.

Payment: We are NOT a vanity press. We do NOT charge authors a penny to publish their book, nor do we encourage an author to buy large quantities of their own books. Payment is through a pre-arranged contract based on royalties from sales, and paid 45 days after the end of each quarter.

Response time on submissions and queries is usually 30 days or less.

What We Seek:

Hard Science Fiction - no fantasy, or anything resembling fantasy.

Due to the number of submissions in this category, we've decided to narrow this field a bit further, and try to make it clearer for authors. We DO NOT seek 'Star Wars' type material, or books based on 'contrived universes'. A contrived universe-based book is where the author invents entirely new worlds and societies that have no relation to life on Earth in any form. Unless your book is a very good example of this type of writing, such as 'Dune', we would probably reject it. 

Sci-Fi we would have published (in our dreams, of course)
Red Planet, The Core, 2001, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Gattaca, 1984, Timeline, The Road.
  
Crime Novels -  Absolutely NO murder mysteries. We seek crime novels with tough or sophisticated criminals, and usually from the point-of-view of the criminals, not the authorities trying to catch them. Heavy violence is okay, if it has a purpose and is not simply gratuitous. We love hard-core criminals who have little respect for the law, or characters in serious rebellion with society. We DO consider true crime, but only biographies of very famous criminals. If you have a new version of the Bonnie and Clyde story, or Dillinger, a well-known modern-day crime figure, or a famous outlaw from the Old West...we will take a look. No fictional accounts of real criminals or fanfic of famous criminals ... it must be a straight biography.

Books we would have published in the Crime category:
Natural Born Killers, The Deadly Tower, The Godfather,
The Patty Hearst Story.

Contemporary Romance - AB is no longer accepting submissions in this category. We only publish a limited number of Romance novels, and those
are by Kara Benson.

You can see her newest book 'The River That Saved Me' at Current Titles.

True-Life Adventure -  Survival stories are the main theme here. Human triumph over physical adversity, in a remarkable (and TRUE) fashion, is a theme we actively seek in this category. Presented facts will be checked through news sources. This means if you write a book claiming you were lost a sea for a month - we have to check your story before publication is offered.

Illustrated Travel Books - A good example is the one we recently published by Bernie Katchor, 'Around The Next Bend'. Any books in this category must have a 'story' or 'theme' behind them. We aren't interested in your last sailing trip along the Mexican Riviera. If you just sailed around the world, or hiked across the length of Canada alone, drop us a line. You must have pictures to go along with your story.

Non-Fiction - Currently we are only doing non-fiction in one category. This is 'how to start your own business on a shoestring budget.' It must be a book concerning a realistic business that virtually anyone can do.

The Escape Velocity Magazine - AB's hard science fiction/science fact magazine. Click on the title to go the website for details on submissions to the magazine. We seek short stories, articles, film reviews, and other items. 

Response time on submissions and queries for books or submissions to Escape Velocity is usually 30 days or less.

NEW: HOW TO WRITE A SYNOPSIS FOR A BOOK SUBMISSION

Editors need to know if your story works, and they need it in a nutshell. Authors will often confuse a 'blurb' with a synopsis. A blurb is text that the publisher might use to help sell the book. Blurbs are often found at the publisher's website, or on the sleeve jacket of the book. It leaves a bit of mystery, it tries to build some excitement. IT IS NOT A SYNOPSIS. A good synopsis will be 1,000 words or less that outlines the premise of the book, the entire plot from start to finish, and describes the main characters and their motivations in detail.

Some writers mistakenly think that book editors are looking to steal their ideas, so they don't want to give away the ending. Instead of laying out the book, they try to lead the editor along with mysterious and ambigious statements. This is the sign of an amateur, and a sure road to rejection.

Writing a good synopsis is tough. Basically, you are trying to boil down the whole book into less than a thousand words. You will usually have to edit a synopsis several times before it's ready to send out to publishers. But a good one will save you a lot of wasted time. It will either generate a faster response by a publisher to see your work - or the work will be rejected faster.
Saves a lot of time on both sides.  
However, a good synopsis tells an editor that you are a serious writer.

We may be picky, but we love to give new authors a chance when we can. Payment is through a pre-negotiated contract based on gross royalties from sales, and is one of the most generous in the business. We do NOT charge any upfront fees from our authors.

One way to discover what a publisher really does is to buy a book.
All AB titles come with a money-back guarantee.
See the Current Titles page for details.

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