Publishing is evolving. When Hookline began, we were on the front line of changes. Lately we have felt as though we are standing still. We love the Hookline process of letting readers find manuscripts worthy of publication. However, it is time to speed up the process – over the years, we have lost out as good writers were snapped up by other publishing houses during our lengthy ten-month, two-stage selection process.

The first thing is to assure you all that book groups will remain an integral part of the selection process. The second thing is that submissions will remain open only to students and graduates of MA writing courses. This keeps the Hookline link between new writers and serious readers.

But we do need to be more nimble and put out promising titles in a faster manner. 
Writers, let’s first detail how the changes will affect you.

Writers there will be no submission deadline, and we still ask you to initially submit only the first three chapters – if we think the work reads well, we will ask for the complete manuscript and pass it on to book groups who favour that particular genre.  The book group will report back to us, and feedback will go to the writer. A thumbs up from the groups will result in e-reader publication. A resounding thumbs up, will result in paperback and e-reader publication. Any ebook with sales exceeding 10,000 will be published in paperback format.

Writers, there will be no submission fee. However, we ask for no multiple submissions and to ensure you only submit your best work, we will only take one submission from each writer in any given year.