The Emma Press is an independent publisher specialising in poetry, short fiction and children’s books. It was founded in 2012 and is based in Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, UK.
Every 6 months, we have open submissions calls looking for new books to publish. For more information on the dates and guidelines for the next open call, please visit theemmapress.com.
Any applications or submissions windows we have will appear below when they are open. All information you'll need to prepare your submission in the meantime, can be found on the submissions page of our website.
Thank you for your interest in submitting your work to The Emma Press.
We will receive submissions from 10.00 Friday 1 August until 23.59 Friday 15 August 2025 (UK Time).
In this call, we ask for proposals for:
- Poetry Pamphlets (for adults)
- Memoir/Essay/Creative Non-Fiction Books (for adults)
- Novellas (for adults)
- Short Story Collections (for adults)
- Children's Poetry Books (8+)
- Children's Fiction Books (8+)
- Translations (in all categories above)
We will not be looking for Full Poetry Collections for Adults, or Children's Picture Books in this round.
Find full guidelines, proposal tips and FAQs on our website but, for the avoidance of doubt, our prose books generally contain 15-25,000 words, and we will not be looking for proposals for any prose books (non-fiction, novellas or short story collections) over 30,000 words.
Eligibility
- We have a ‘no agents’ policy. We see The Emma Press as a place where future stars can gain a platform that enables them to get an agent, or for more established writers to take a sidestep on a side project.
- We accept submissions from anywhere in the world so long as the work is written in or translated into English.
- Submissions are limited to one per author.
We encourage you to read some of our previous publications, so you can get a sense of what we like and explain with practical examples in your proposal how you see your work fitting in with our current range. The curated Emma Press Bundles are our suggested readings for anyone considering submitting – take a look.
Submission Steps
- Write your proposal! We have guides and suggestions on how to structure a prose proposal and a poetry proposal.
- Purchase a give-what-you-can submission ticket from our webshop and make a note of your number order (you’ll be asked to enter it on the following page). Free submissions tickets are available to those unable to donate.
- Prepare your proposal and sample pages (or full manuscript) in a single document in DOC, .ODT or PDF format. Never .pages!
- Upload your proposal and sample pages. You will be asked to fill in a few details including the number of your submission ticket and have the option to give us a short headline description of your book (up to 100 words).
Further Information
Longlisted submissions from this round will be read, discussed and selected alongside our Birmingham Editorial Readers Group comprising of keen readers in our local community. To find out more about that project visit theemmapress.com/BERG.
For more information on how we work with authors, specific guidelines for different genre submissions and FAQs please visit theemmapress.com/submissions.
If your questions aren't answered on our website, we'll hold an in-person drop in at Voce Books in Birmingham on Wednesday 30 July Q&A on our Instagram on Tuesday 5 August.
Thank you for your interest in joining our second Emma Press Birmingham Editorial Readers Group! There are two parts to this application.
In Part 1, we ask you to respond to three questions. We hope to form a group with a range of different reading interests and motivations, and your answers will enable us to do this.
Part 2 is an Equality Monitoring form. Please download a copy here, fill it in and upload as an attachment later in the application form. This is to help us ensure we fulfil our goal to make publishing more accessible to under-represented groups.
There are limited opportunities for jobs and training in publishing in Birmingham and the West Midlands, and - in the wider industry - there is under-representation of Black and Asian people, people from other minority ethnic groups and low-income backgrounds, neurodiverse and disabled people. We hope this project will help address those imbalances and we are passionate about increasing the diversity of perspectives in the publishing industry. We ask for this equality data to ensure we recruit a diverse range of people to the group. The questions are in line with those asked by our funders Arts Council England and forms will be deleted following the selection process.
Membership of the group is reserved for residents of Birmingham and the West Midlands. We are defining this as having home postcodes with the following prefixes: B, CV, DY, WR, WS, WV
Attendance will be required at 6 sessions - 3 online and 3 in Birmingham - across September 2025 - March 2026 (dates & times TBC based on group availability). A payment of £25/session will be offered to support group members to attend.
Find out more about what the Birmingham Editorial Readers Group will do.