Direct submissions to Tor
It's a sign of the changing times that Pan MacmillanOne of largest fiction and non-fiction book publishers in UK; includes imprints of Pan, Picador and Macmillan Children’s Books Science Fiction and Fantasy imprint Tor UK is now accepting direct submissions from authors. Most publishers have long since decided not to accept unsolicited submissions, so this is a major turnaround. It's possibly also a comment on the fact that so relatively few agents represent Science Fiction or Fantasy authors, in most cases because the agents concerned don't profess to understand these genres.
Tor is looking for submissions to come directly to them, stipulating that the work must be complete, and between 95,000 and 150,000 words, interesting in itself because for most fiction this would be considered on the long side. Editorial Director Julie Crisp says:
"Until recently Tor UK followed the submission policy of Macmillan in that we didn't accept direct submissions. To be honest, with so many submissions from agents, plus manuscripts from existing authors and actually publishing books-there's little to no time to actually go through what we used to fondly designate the 'slush pile'.
"However, we do know how frustrating it is for non-published authors to try to get their work into a traditional publishing house. With so many publishers and agents having closed their lists for submissions, many writers feel that the only option is to go down the self-publishing route.
"And while that works for some writers, trying to get the visibility for a novel amongst the sheer numbers of other writers all attempting the same thing is never going to be easy. Besides, hopefully, there is still a fondness for having the book edited, packaged and published by us traditional types."
There are a few other traditional publishers approaching authors directly but generally speaking it's only Mills and Boon who ask for submissions on their site.
