Itoh Press Submissions/Guidelines
Southern Comfort Series:
* must be set in the south or main characters must be southern
* no stereotypes/redneck type characters
* can be set in any time period
Doseiai Series:
* plot must center around GLBT characters
* GLBT characters must be written in a positive light
* no violence (violence can be referred to in a past tense only)
Phantomu Series:
* anything paranormal/haunting/horror/ghosts
* can be romance but don't have to be
* if you are writing about vampires/werewolves please try to be different
Himitsu Series:
* any fantasy not of our world/reality
* must be believable
* no planets where women/children are demeaned
Bosu Josei Series:
* leading female must be independent/sassy/self-reliant
* she must have her own career/money
* she can be single or married but must be independent minded
Saspensu Series:
* can be thriller/detective/suspense
* not all super-sleuths are men, women make good ones too
* an intricate storyline is vital for this series
In The Saddle Series:
* can be anything from cowboys/rodeo/native americans
* must be set in the west - no stereotypes
* can be any set in time period
Kosai Series:
* lovers must be from different cultures/races
* lovers must learn from one another about the other's culture
* show the adversities that can arise from this pairing and how they over-came it
Cherry Blossom Series:
* must be about YA
* can be boy or girl
* plot must show the issues of being a teen or of transitioning from teen to YA
Koibito Series:
* adult romance containing many adversities while leaning heavily on the romance
* must contain an intricate plot but end happily, although not necessarily in marriage
* the intimate scenes can be range mild to hot and spicy
The Red Lantern Series:
* Must rely heavily on sexual situations
* must have a feasible plot line
* may depict light bondage/fetish/kinky
If your book does not fall within the parameters of these outlined series' above than it is more than likely we are not interested in your book's genre and we would encourage you to submit your book elsewhere.
We are NOT interested in:
Short Stories
- Short story collections
- Poetry
- Religious genre fiction. Elements of spiritual beliefs within a story are welcome; however, we do not publish books aimed for a specific religious group of readers.
- *Disclaimer* We NEVER want stories portraying rape, pedophilia, acts of violence against women or other crimes in a positive light.
- Anything sent with a hate message will be deleted and not addressed with the author.
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How to submit to Itoh Press:
Submit a cover letter in the body of the email that contains the following:
Genre
- Word Count
- Brief synopsis
- A short biography
- Your marketing plan, should we accept your manuscript for publication. We expect our authors to be active in the marketing of their titles alongside our efforts.
Although we like to encourage open, free and creative expression, do let us know whether the piece contains any questionable content. We may put disclaimers about content if it could potentially disturb our readers, so do let us know in advance. For instance, we allow rape under certain circumstances, as it may be an important element to a persons biography, but it should not be meant to titillate or be told in detail. Writing about child abuse is one thing, but again, we aren’t interested in seeing the acts described in detail. Itoh Press is also primarily interested in stories with a happy ending.
Attach the following to your cover letter in .doc or .rtf format:
- For stories of 50,000 - 70,000 words: Send us the complete manuscript as an attachment with your contact information, title, word count, and genre at the top of the first page (Title Page).
- For novels 70,000 and up: Send us the first three chapters and the last chapter, with your contact information, title, word count, and genre at the top of the first page.
Your manuscript should contain double spacing and one inch margins. Use a 12 pt. Courier, New Times Roman, or Georgia font.
Send to Itoh Press with a subject line: SUBMISSIONS_your name_book title to…
submissions@itohpress.com
Please allow two weeks for a response.
Itoh Press pays 40% royalties on net revenue to the Author for eBooks and 25% net on revenue for print. We hold all rights for five (5) years from date of publication. We do not pay advances. Rights requested are worldwide for ebooks and US, Canada, Australian, and UK print rights.
Itoh Press only accepts professionally edited manuscripts. Please do not send unedited or incomplete manuscripts.
Itoh Press clearly distinguishes between romance, erotic romance, and erotica. GLBT romance may be any heat level depending on language, theme, the development of the romantic relationship, and sexual frequency and intensity.
Itoh Press releases all our books in ebook form first and depending on their sales we decide on when/if the book will go to print!
Heat levels…
Sweet -1 Hot Pepper (anything from no romance to sex behind closed doors)
- Mild -2 Hot Peppers (can contain several lovemaking scenes without graphic language)
- Highly Sensual – 3 Hot Peppers (can include hot, frequent love scenes, standard for mainstream romance)
- Erotic Romance – 4 Hot Peppers (includes clinical or graphic terms for body parts and intercourse. The story must contain a romantic theme. It may include light BDSM, GBLT, ménage and anal sex as long as its frequency does not outweigh vanilla sex.)
- Erotica-5 Hot Peppers (highly explicit/graphic/frequent may include heavier use of BDSM, ménage and anal. Not entirely dependent on romance.)
*Note: Some online retailers will ask for a different rating when we sell through them.
Our books are available in many formats through, Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Itunes, Sony, Apple Store, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Nook, Smashwords, Scribd, Books-A-Million, and more. The list is continually growing as Smashwords distributes eBooks to many other retailers like Chapters/Indigo, Borders, Books on Board, eBook Mall, book expos, and foreign Libraries. LSI print distribution includes US, Canada, UK, and Australia.
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Writer’s Guide to Understanding the Process for Publishing Your Book
1. After your manuscript has been accepted for publication you will present a clean copy to the editor to be edited. This means using no auto-formatting (headers, footers, tabs, bullets, etc.) in your document. Spell check and grammar check to make sure your copy is as error free as possible before it goes to the editor.
2. You will receive your manuscript with the editor’s changes and suggestions. These are not criticisms; they are professional constructive advice meant to help you polish your material.
3. You will then accept or reject the changes or suggestions the editor has made. If you reject the editor’s suggestions then you must discuss with Ms. Itoh on whether the manuscript will move forward with publication.
4. You must read and review your final manuscript, carefully making sure you are happy with it and ready for it to be published.
5. You will email the final version of your manuscript to Carol Itoh. Please Cc a copy to the editor, too. You must write FINAL VERSION OF MS AND DATE in the subject heading of the email. This final version will be published. Any errors in the book at this point are your responsibility, not the editor’s or the publisher’s.
6. Instead of using your Return key several times to create a new page please go to Format at the top of your page, select Break, then select Page Break. This will instantly insert your page for you. It saves lots of time for the graphics designer who has to remove all the Return keystrokes and insert Page Break.
7. Please DO NOT bother with page numbers. The graphics designer will insert these in the formatting process while preparing your manuscript for publications. If you have page numbers please remove them along with the footers they are normally inserted in.
8. Lately we have experienced several issues with formatting once the books have gone to print. One of the things we discovered while trying to solve the problem was that some writers had used headers, footers, their tab button to indent, and a few other auto format techniques on their manuscripts. These are basically invisible to us and we have no idea they are there. However when the graphics designer formats your document over this and it goes to print this can cause printing problems. This will leave the book looking off and the formatting will look amateurish. In the future if we discover the issue for your book problems was auto format we will not cover the cost of re-loading your book to correct this issue. So make sure you submit a clean manuscript.
By following these simple tip you will smooth out the process of processing your manuscript for publication.
*********************************************************************************************************************************
Some of the distributors LSI uses:
US:
UK
Canada:
* Chapters/Indigo
Writer’s Guide to Understanding the Process for Publishing Your Book
1. After your manuscript has been accepted for publication you will present a clean copy to the editor to be edited. This means using no auto-formatting (headers, footers, tabs, bullets, etc.) in your document. Spell check and grammar check to make sure your copy is as error free as possible before it goes to the editor.
2. You will receive your manuscript with the editor’s changes and suggestions. These are not criticisms; they are professional constructive advice meant to help you polish your material.
3. You will then accept or reject the changes or suggestions the editor has made. If you reject the editor’s suggestions then you must discuss with Ms. Itoh on whether the manuscript will move forward with publication.
4. You must read and review your final manuscript, carefully making sure you are happy with it and ready for it to be published.
5. You will email the final version of your manuscript to Carol Itoh. Please Cc a copy to the editor, too. You must write FINAL VERSION OF MS AND DATE in the subject heading of the email. This final version will be published. Any errors in the book at this point are your responsibility, not the editor’s or the publisher’s.
6. Instead of using your Return key several times to create a new page please go to Format at the top of your page, select Break, then select Page Break. This will instantly insert your page for you. It saves lots of time for the graphics designer who has to remove all the Return keystrokes and insert Page Break.
7. Please DO NOT bother with page numbers. The graphics designer will insert these in the formatting process while preparing your manuscript for publications. If you have page numbers please remove them along with the footers they are normally inserted in.
8. Lately we have experienced several issues with formatting once the books have gone to print. One of the things we discovered while trying to solve the problem was that some writers had used headers, footers, their tab button to indent, and a few other auto format techniques on their manuscripts. These are basically invisible to us and we have no idea they are there. However when the graphics designer formats your document over this and it goes to print this can cause printing problems. This will leave the book looking off and the formatting will look amateurish. In the future if we discover the issue for your book problems was auto format we will not cover the cost of re-loading your book to correct this issue. So make sure you submit a clean manuscript.
By following these simple tip you will smooth out the process of processing your manuscript for publication.
*********************************************************************************************************************************
Some of the distributors LSI uses:
US:
- Ingram
- Amazon.com
- Baker & Taylor
- Barnes & Noble
- Apple Books
- Smashword
- Sony Books
- Scribd
- Books-A-Million
UK
- Adlibris.com
- Amazon.co.uk
- Bertrams
- Blackwell
- Book Depository
- Coutts
- Gardners
- Mallory International
- Paperback Shop
- Eden Interactive Ltd.
- Aphrohead
Canada:
* Chapters/Indigo