What we publish

We publish novels. We are not picky about age category.

As a new and independent press, we aim to publish books that display care and sensitivity for the people who will read them. Literature is inherently political, and we are unlikely to be interested in publishing books that are pro-war, pro-oppression, or otherwise promote an unequal society.

We are particularly interested in authors who have perspectives and backgrounds that are underrepresented in the current book market.

What we do not publish

We do not publish anything but novels. Although we read and enjoy chapter books, picture books, novellas, poetry, collections of essays, non-fiction, and many other forms of literature, we do not publish these.

The line between novels and novellas is largely arbitrary, and we leave it to you to decide whether to spend time submitting your Very Short Novel to us. We are loath to turn a manuscript away before even seeing the next The Little Prince or Chronicles of Narnia. We are unlikely to accept manuscripts longer than 90,000 words.

We do not publish all genres of fiction. In particular, we cannot give the attention and publicity they deserve to novels in the Romance, erotica, and Christian genres. Publishers who specialize in these genres will be better able to prepare and market these books.

How to submit your work

We accept submissions by email to submissions@cinnabarmoth.com. This is the only way to submit to us. In particular, please do not send your submission to our legal address. We will not receive it.

Please submit in the way that seems most natural to you, but in one of the formats mentioned here. We accept queries in the body of the email, manuscripts (partial or full) as attached .docx, .doc, .pdf, or .odf files, or a combination of these.

If you have an agent, we are happy to hear from them on your behalf, but you do not need one to submit to us.

We do NOT accept .pages files. If you are using a Mac to write, please export to some other format.

What you agree by submitting

By submitting to us, you agree not to sue us, threaten to sue us, or otherwise act as though we have stolen your manuscript and/or ideas. If you think we would steal your work, please don’t submit to us.

Before publishing any work submitted to us, we negotiate a contract, do our best to ensure you have the right to license your work to us (or license your client’s work, if you are an agent), and generally act as though this is our business. Which it is.

What kind of deals we offer