Editorial Guidelines

New Society Publishers is a progressive publishing company that specializes in books for activists, books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society. We sell our books to a North America-wide market, using trade distributors in both Canada and the United States, as well as through direct mail and the Internet. We also have distribution channels overseas.

A large majority of the books we publish we either initiate ourselves or acquire through previous contact with the author, or with an organization with which the author works. We sometimes publish manuscripts that are wholly unsolicited, and we welcome queries from authors, potential authors, agents, or organizations seeking a publisher or co-publisher. For a better sense of what we like to publish, please either request a catalog, or check out our on-line catalog at: www.newsociety.com

Editorial Objectives

Our mandate is to work for broad social transformation toward sustainability, through nonviolent means. We specialize in providing the understanding, the tools and the skills for enabling such a transformation to occur. Our editorial focus on sustainable living includes a broad subject area ranging from globalization, through green building and renewable energy, to conscientious commerce, conflict education, and more. We aim to help build an alternative infrastructure to that of the mainstream - books to build a new society.

NSP also sees itself as a solutions publisher, providing 'good news' most of the time as well as clear analysis of the major issues we face in the struggle to create a more just and equitable world. Our emphasis is always inspirational, motivational, and skill-oriented. We don't publish books that merely catalog what is wrong in the world; we do publish books that show that we can take control over our lives and change the way things are - and which suggest how we can accomplish this. Although we believe that fiction and poetry can play an important role in social change, they require different expertise and different marketing, neither of which we can provide; please do not submit such works.

While we will consider any proposal that fits our broad editorial goals outlined above, we are particularly interested in books that fall into these major (and overlapping) areas:

Globalization, Current Affairs and Activism: Increasingly, we live in a globalized world dominated by large corporate and government interests. These books analyze key current affairs of global importance and focus on ways in which people are organizing and acting to resist the worst excesses.
Sustainable Living: books that contribute in original ways to achieving ecological, social, and cultural sustainability - from growing food to cooking it, to housing ourselves, moving ourselves around, changing our behaviors and facing a future with fewer resources.
Environment & Economy: these books address key issues ranging from climate change through the rapid demise of our oceans, the end of cheap oil and the 'nature' of economic growth.
Ecological Design: There are alternatives to slums, sprawl and suburbs. These books provide tools and methods for designing our towns and cities so that we may live more within the ecological limits of our home places and more in harmony with our neighbors.
Natural & Green Building: Shelter is one of our primary needs. Yet our dwellings have become so complex that most of us can no longer build them and they are now often bad for your health. The Natural and Green building movements are changing all this, as the highly practical books in this category demonstrate.
Renewable Energy: As the world runs out of oil, we need to learn how to live from the abundance provided from the sun, the wind, from water and from human ingenuity crafted carefully to place.
Resistance and Community: books that help break the vicious cycle of environmental exploitation and the cultural, economic, political, and social dislocation of communities - and books that help people reestablish the bonds of community, both with humankind and with nature.
Progressive Leadership: resources and training manuals devoted to nonhierarchical group dynamics and democratic decision making, nonviolent action strategies and tactics, support and empowerment for leaders, activists, and organizations, etc.
'Conscientious Commerce:' books that focus on the 'new business' - the ways in which business is transforming itself to take responsibility for environmental and social concerns, etc.
Education & Parenting: books that analyze our educational systems and propose alternatives; that explore nonviolent forms of child-rearing and play; and books that encourage conflict resolution, social responsibility, and democratic behavior in young people; books on environmental education.

For further information, please see "Key Topics" on our website.

What to Submit

The number of manuscripts we are actually able to read is finite. In order to increase the chance that your proposal will receive good attention and hence increase the chance that we'll publish it, we ask that you do not submit the entire manuscript until we ask for it, but rather send us the following:

a table of contents
a sample chapter
a proposal which answers the following questions:
1. In 75 words or less, what is the book about?
2. What qualifies you, or gives you authority, to write such a book? (We are interested as much in experience as in formal degrees.)
3. What other books in the field exist, when were they published, and how is yours similar or different? Trees are valuable and increasingly scarce: will the world really benefit from decreasing the number of trees in order to add another book on this subject?
4. Out of over 4,000 trade book publishers in the United States and Canada, why are you sending your proposal to New Society Publishers? How did you learn of us?
5. Whom do you imagine to be the audience for the book? What do you think are the best ways to reach them? If you could have the book serialized or reviewed, what are the 5 or 10 most important publications in which it could appear?
6. What help can you be in the promotion of the book? Organizational connections? Mailing lists? Workshops? Tours? (We are primarily interested in publishing authors who are prepared to help substantially with the promotion of their own books.)
7. We sell books back to authors at a deep discount. How many of your own books do you think you might need initially, if any?
8. Manuscripts must be submitted on disk. What platform do you work on (Mac or Windows)? What make and model of computer do you have? What word-processor and version?
9. What is the length of your manuscript? Provide a word count (many word processing programs can calculate this automatically).
10. When do you expect your book to be completed? How much do you currently have written?

How to Submit a Proposal

We cannot guarantee serious consideration of a proposal that does not include all of the elements above. If you want a response and/or your manuscript returned, include a self-addressed stamped envelope (or international stamp coupon of sufficient value, if you are outside Canada); we cannot either acknowledge receipt of, nor return, materials for projects we reject that come without a SASE or equivalent. Please be patient; we are reading as fast as we can! We will ask for the whole manuscript if we wish to see it. Please understand that decisions to publish are complex and require much more time than do refusals. Please do not call us once you have sent us your proposal; we'll contact you as appropriate. - Thanks very much indeed for thinking of us!

New Society Publishers
PO Box 189, Gabriola Island,
BC Canada
V0R 1X0
Tel: 250-247-9737
Fax: 250-247-7471
www.newsociety.com
E-Mail:editor@newsociety.com