At Flatpage, we welcome book projects that help bridge the gap between subject-area expertise and public understanding. Whether you are proposing a new idea, revising an existing manuscript, or preparing sample chapters, the guidelines below outline what we look for in prospective works.

Submission Process

At Flatpage, we are dedicated to empowering our authors and using our expertise to turn research into compelling and accessible stories. We are a uniquely situated publishing house because we offer bespoke editorial services based on the author’s needs, with our in-house team of highly experienced editors who are former academics and journalists with editing certificates from renowned programs.

As an independent press without a cumbersome peer-review process, Flatpage offers a faster publishing time than university presses—typically just a few months from the time the content is finalized—and, unlike self-publishing, we provide a guided experience led by experts who are passionate about connecting scholarship to the public.

In addition to offering our authors complimentary copyediting and proofreading as part of the publishing process, Flatpage can assist authors with less experience of writing for a general audience through its editorial agency, which offers coaching to help in the writing process and developing your ideas, developmental editing to improve the overall story and use of sources, and line editing to address the writing style and tone—services that are not typically offered by traditional or university presses.

We will produce high-quality print and/or e-book formats and we have a dedicated employee to assist in implementing our comprehensive marketing and distribution plan for your book. As at other independent publishers, authors will be expected to subsidize image rights and indexing, and will share marketing and publicity efforts. Flatpage offers competitive royalty arrangements, a network of cutting-edge book designers, recommendations for printing options and distribution channels, and marketing and publicity planning geared toward the audience of your book. Additionally, we encourage authors to consider the possibility of adding augmented reality (AR) to their publication.

We invite you to join us in this venture of knowledge dissemination, bridging the gap between subject-area expertise and public understanding and expanding on current affairs from the front line. Let’s work together to present your contributions in an engaging, transformative, and accessible manner to enrich the lives of diverse readers.

What We Look For

Clarity for general audiences
Proposals should show how your research or expertise can be communicated effectively and impactfully to readers without a technical background—or outline how you would collaborate with our editorial team to achieve this.

Appropriate manuscript length
Authors should aim for a 50,000–80,000-word final manuscript to allow for depth, narrative cohesion, and meaningful engagement with the subject matter.

Project stage flexibility
We consider:

• Completed manuscripts
• Partial manuscripts
• Proposals for works yet to be written

Sample chapters may be requested on a case-by-case basis.

What we are not seeking
Flatpage is not currently interested in dissertation-to-book conversions.

If you have questions about whether your project is a good fit, or if you’d like guidance on preparing a proposal, our editorial team is happy to help. Please contact our acquisitions editors at publishing@flatpage.com.