SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN.

Welcome to the Double Dragon Publishing's Submission Page

If you are reading this page you are probably looking for a home for your "baby"... your story... your title. While I am biased, I'd like to say none the less, that you have come to the right place. Double Dragon Publishing has been in the business of publishing the works of authors like yourself for over 10 years. Before that we've had personal experience that goes back to the 1980s. So we know publishing. But before going further you must understand that Double Dragon Publishing is above all else an EBOOK PUBLISHER.

While it is true that we also publish trade paperback, pocket books and hard covers through Ingram as well as Lulu. Our main focus and expertise is the publication of eBooks. With this in mind I must say that we are VERY good at it!

In the last little while eBooks have found a new resurgence within the industry thanks to companies like Amazon, Apple, Sony and Kobo that have brought to the market fairly inexpensive hardware devices that allow the ease and convenience of reading a book electronically. Luckily Double Dragon Publishing has been there from the very beginning. For more than 10 years we have been involved in the eBook industry. We were there when it was first "invented", then abandoned by the mainstream publishers, then embraced once again in 2010-2011. As a result we have a solid foot hold in the industry and a solid reputation that can be verified by our authors. Yes we have lost the occasional author, but over the past ten years this number has been less than 15. In fact many authors come to us from other publishers both big and small, and remain with us for many years.

If you decide to submit to Double Dragon Publishing and are accepted, you will find a home for your story that will be sold within our large eBook network (perhaps the largest available). Your title will be edited, a cover created and distributed to places like Ingram, Lulu, Barnes and Noble, Fictionwise, eReader, Sony, Kobo, Amazon, Apple, eBooks.com, Books on Board, Diesel eBooks and so on. AND we will not charge you a cent.

If you are still interested you should read this brief interview conducted on June 24th 2011.

Important Note: Please ensure that you go over your submission carefully. We have found that a number of manuscripts still contain simply errors that could have been caught with a "beta-reader group". Submissions with too many errors will be rejected outright. Also, we do not provide "advice" on the improvement of your story if rejected.

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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We welcome submissions from new, unpublished authors as well as from those well known to the public. We also welcome authors who do not enjoy the services of an agent.

HAS YOUR TITLE BEEN PUBLISHED BEFORE?

THEN YOU CAN FAST TRACK YOUR TITLE: If you have a title that was previously published and you can provide a fully edited manuscript ready for release, you should contact our publisher directly at deron at double-dragon-ebooks dot com for details about FAST TRACKING your title in such a way that allows you to enjoy the benefits of joining the DDP family NOW!

Fast Tracked titles can receive between 40-50% royalty if further editing and cover art is not required.

We do, however, urge all of those who plan to submit a work, to study our guidelines, especially those detailing how we wish the manuscript formatted. Whether or not we accept your submission will depend on strict adherence to the guidelines, as well as on the quality of the story itself.

We will accept previously published works only if the author exclusively holds the rights.

LENGTH OF MANUSCRIPT: we will not accept novels that are shorter than 40,000 words. We do not accept short stories. We will accept collections of short stories presented as a single submission, if the collection is 40,000 words or longer. We prefer 90,000 words as a maximum, but we are flexible in this regard. We will not reject an otherwise acceptable but longer work, provided that the story is fast-paced throughout its length.

We will not accept simultaneous submissions! Please make sure that your submission has been sent EXCLUSIVELY to us.

RESPONSE TIME: We will process submissions as they are submitted, and depending on our work load, you can expect an email reply within 5-6 weeks of the date received.

GENRES: We are currently accepting only SCIENCE FICTION, including Hard (Science) SF, Space Fiction, Sci Fi, Future Fiction, Lost Civilizations, Utopias, Distopias, Disaster Novels, Alternate Histories, Time Travel, Parallel Worlds, etc., and FANTASY, including Myth, Legend, Fairy Tales, Traditional Fantasy, Magic Realism, Sword and Sorcery, Epic Fantasy, Horror, Gothic, etc.

Submissions in other genres will not be considered this time around, nor will an author receive an emailed reply if his/her submission does not conform to these requirements. If your novel is a work of erotic romance, send it to our subsidiary: Carnal Desires Publishing.

FORMATS: We are currently publishing eBooks in Rocket-eBook, Hiebook, Adobe PDF, MS-Reader, Mobipocket, iSilo, Franklin eBookMan, Palm Doc, Kindle, Html, and the new SONY format. Double Dragon Publishing will continue to evolve as new technologies emerge in the area of the electronic book.

SERIES OF NOVELS: If an author has completed a series of related works, and we accept the first book in the series, we will also accept the other novels in the series, unless we discover the quality of those to be markedly inferior to that of the first book. Each book in the series should stand alone (have a definite conclusion).

WHAT WE WANT/WILL CONSIDER IN A SUBMISSION:

1. The entire manuscript of a work must not only be completely finished, but also lovingly, painstakingly edited and polished, and placed in the format we require. (See the section on formatting.) We will not accept submissions that require exhaustive editing, no matter how ingenious the story line may be.
2. Believable, well-developed characters.
3. A riveting plot. We want those fascinating characters to be caught up in an intense, dramatic, suspenseful conflict. We want to see an action-packed beginning that immediately draws us into the unfolding drama. We want the suspense to build toward a thunderous climax.
4. Originality. We want stories that stand apart from those of established, successful authors. We want stories written by people possessed of a vivid imagination, an ability to write memorable prose, a talent for creating lively, natural-sounding dialogue, and a determination to avoid long, dull, descriptive, repetitive passages that impede the flow of the narrative. Authors of hard science fiction should be knowledgeable regarding current science and technology, so that their portrayal of futuristic scientific achievements does not violate the laws of physics.
   

COVER ART: Double Dragon Publishing will provide intriguing, highly artistic cover art. The image created for a particular book will appear both in the eBook file of the work, and on the paperback version, if the author elects to offer a paperback version. We do not accept cover art provided by the author. The artistry of our cover artist forms an eye-catching signature attribute distinguishing all novels sold by us.

CONTRACT TERMS:

1. A full contract will be supplied to the author for review upon our acceptance of the work.
2. Royalties: 30 % of the cover price less credit card processing fees for eBooks sold from our site, 30 % of the amount received from a reseller, and 8 % of the retail price for POD print books.
3. Rights: we will acquire only the digital rights (exclusive electronic rights for eBook and audio use) for five years, with an automatic one year renewal unless either party provides a written request after the five year term, but before the anniversary of each one year renewal date. If the author takes the Print-On-Demand option, we will also acquire the paperback rights for five years.
4. Royalty payments that total more than $25.00 will be paid semiannually in US dollars. Payments will be made approximately two months after the end of the period. The length of this delay will depend on the amount of time our retailers take to distribute payments to us.
5. Our preferred method of payment is to deposit the royalty payment in an author-supplied PayPal Account.
6. Authors who prefer not to use PayPal can request that they be mailed a check in USD funds. Such a check will be drawn on a Canadian bank, and mailed from Canada, so authors residing in the USA should realize that considerable time may elapse before such a check arrives, and then clears through a USA bank. DDP is not responsible for any service charges your bank or financial institution may charge for processing.
   

HOW TO ARRANGE, FORMAT AND SEND YOUR SUBMISSION:

€¢ Manuscripts must be submitted electronically, in .rtf format created in MS WORD (Word 98 or above), and be sent as an attachment to an email, to submissions (at) double-dragon-ebooks (dot) com . (We apologize for not giving the link exactly, but in order to reduce the amount of spam we receive, we ask that you place the proper symbols in this email address.)

€¢ We will NOT accept manuscripts sent in MS Word's DOC format, or those contained within the body of an email. Documents in DOC format can carry harmful viruses. We will NOT accept manuscripts in HTML, Mac, WordPerfect, or MS Works.

€¢ The email must contain "Submission to DDP of [title of book] by [your real name]" in the subject line.

€¢ Include a short, one-paragraph note in the body of the email, so as to introduce yourself, if you are submitting to DDP for the first time.

€¢ The submission must be a single .rtf file separated into two parts by a Next Page break. For details, see our Formatting Guidelines.

€¢ Manuscripts must be placed in the format we require. See our Formatting Guidelines.

FORMATTING GUIDELINES:

The single .rtf file constituting the submission must be separated into two portions, Part A and Part B, by a Next Page break. To insert a Next Page break, click on Insert in the main MS Word toolbar, and then on Break. Under "Section Break Types," you will find "Next Page." Click on that. Or press the CTRL-ENTER keys.

Part A must contain the following items in the order given below. Insert the numbering and the headings given in bold type. Follow those with the required information. Single space the paragraphs providing this information.

1. Submission of [name of book] by [your real name].
2. Contact Information , each item placed on a separate line:
1. Author's real name
2. Author's pseudonym, if you wish the work to appear under a pen name
3. Author's mailing address, including your country
4. Author's telephone number
5. Author's email address
3. Synopsis: a short description of the story: three paragraphs that total approximately 250 words. Note, the short and long synopsis is used to whet the potential reader's appetite and should tempt them but not give away any plot points that would ruin the experience for them.
4. Short Synopsis: a very concise description of the book: one that totals no more than 175 words.
5. Long Synopsis: a more detailed description of the book. Five or six paragraphs totaling 400 to 450 words.
6. Biography: a biography of you, the author, using your pen name, if you have one. The biography should be two or three paragraphs totaling approximately 250 words. Since the public will see this biography, write it with that fact in mind, in the third person.
7. Photograph: a digital photograph, if you have one available, and wish it displayed to the public.
8. Series: state whether or not your submission forms part of a series. If it does, state whether or not the other books in the series are also finished and polished. State the name of the series and the number of books the series contains.
9. Genre: state what genre and subgenre best describe your story.
10. Publishing History: state whether the submission has been previously published. If it has, then it is essential that all rights have reverted back exclusively to you.
11. Editing: state whether the manuscript has been edited by a professional editor. Whether it has or not, your book, if accepted, will still be edited by us, with a view to correcting any errors in grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling that have escaped detection by you and/or your editor.
12. A Final, Important Note: acceptance of your submission will depend, to a marked degree, on your having few errors in grammar, sentence structure, punctuation and spelling, both in the manuscript and in the synopses/biography that you include in Part A. Manuscripts needing exhaustive editing will be rejected, after we read them only so far as to enable us to make that determination.

The synopses and biography will be used to help sell your book, so make those as well-crafted as the narrative they describe!

Part B. Copy and paste your complete, proofread, carefully edited, properly formatted manuscript into this part of the single document.

FORMATTING THE MANUSCRIPT : we require that your manuscript be formatted as follows:

To insert certain required formatting values into your manuscript, click on Format in the main MS Word toolbar, and then click on Font. When you finish with Font, click on Paragraph.

Enter in each the values indicated in A and B, below:

A. Format, Font: Times New Roman, regular, 12 point.

B. Format, Paragraph, Indents and Spacing, General: Alignment = left, Outline Level = body text. Indentation: Left = 0, Right = 0. Special = First line, By = .5. Spacing: Before = 0 pt. After = 0 pt. Line Spacing = single.

1. Do not put blank lines between the paragraphs of text.
2. Do not use headers or footers, and do not number the pages.
3. Use one-inch margins.
4. Leave two spaces between sentences.
5. Thoughts expressed by a character, as opposed to spoken words, must be italicized rather than placed within quotation marks. Foreign words or phrases, and words that the author wishes to emphasize, must also be italicized. Do not use underlining for this purpose.
6. Do not press the Tab key at the beginning of each paragraph! Doing so will double the degree of indentation. If you habitually do that, and are now putting a completed manuscript into the format we require, please remove all the Tab arrows at the beginning of each paragraph. To render those Tab arrows visible, click on the Show/Hide icon in the Standard MS Word toolbar. (You can use Find and Replace to remove the Tab marks. Click on Find, More, Special, Tab Character. Click on replace. Leave Replace blank. Click on Replace All. The Tab arrows will all vanish.)
7. We strongly recommend that you get into the habit of activating the Show/Hide icon on the Standard MS Word Toolbar as you write, so as to see not only the arrows made by the Tab key, but also the dots representing spaces and the symbols representing paragraph marks.
8. Try not to leave two spaces at the end of the last sentence of a paragraph. Those wrap around. In some formats used by publishers, those wrapped-around spaces can cause trouble. We urge you to perform the tedious task of removing those, if they abound in your manuscript, before sending it to us.
   

First Page of the Manuscript:

1. In the upper right hand corner, place the following, each on its own line:

Your real name

Pen name you wish used

Word count

Your mailing address

Your telephone number

Your email address

2. Place the cursor on the line that says "Delete the instructions given below." Read and then delete the instructions. Insert the properly formatted, single-spaced manuscript.
3. Separate chapters with a Page Break. To insert a Page Break, click on Insert , in the main MS Word toolbar, and then on Break, and then on "Page Break." Do not leave blank space above the chapter heading.
   

We require this kind of formatting because it makes submissions easy for us to read, and easy to set up for publishing. Because we save time by setting this requirement, you can be assured that a book we accept will be offered for sale that much sooner!

To download an MS Word Submissions Template into which you can copy and paste your personal information, synopses, and manuscript, click HERE .

If you have questions regarding any aspect of the formatting described above, email us at submissions (at) double-dragon-ebooks (dot) com and we will reply promptly.