PUBLISHING WITH RAW NERVE
We at Raw Nerve want to publish wonderful writing that will inspire and delight readers. In addition, we believe that radical publishing is not just about the content of the writing, but also involves collaboration between publisher and writer, and a commitment to circulating excellent writing that may have limited initial appeal. We publish both academic and artistic work and aim to support writers, including those new to the field, but also ask for support and co-operation from our writers. We welcome new people to Raw Nerve - please browse this site to find out more, and contact us if you have any queries.
SUBMITTING A PROPOSAL
Raw Nerve welcomes proposals that extend and provoke political and artistic debates. We are currently accepting submissions for monographs and edited collections. Please read these pages carefully before submitting a proposal, and contact us if you have any queries or if would like to discuss work-in-progress. We are particularly keen to publish short monographs and work that can be published as a combined print and web piece.
We are happy to discuss an idea with you before receiving a full proposal, although the more fully worked out your work is and the more information you can give us, the better. If possible, send in a proposal as this helps us work with you more quickly and productively.
OUR RESPONSIBILITIES
Raw Nerve will read all submissions and send out likely pieces to an editorial reader who has some expertise in your genre or field. We will try to give you a decision within two months of submission. If we think your work is suitable for Raw Nerve we will set out our editorial revisions, and if possible meet you in person to discuss a work plan and a timetable for publication. Once we have agreed terms we will send you a contract, setting out in full the legal responsibilities of both parties. Raw Nerve will agree to publish, publicise and distribute the work unless prevented by circumstances beyond our control.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
When you send work to Raw Nerve you are guaranteeing that it is an unpublished piece written by you. You will need to arrange any copyright permission. Once we have agreed on a publishable version and contracts are signed you will be required to send in a final version in accordance with the timetable set out in the contract. You will retain copyright of your piece of work and publication in Raw Nerve does not preclude publication elsewhere, in fact we encourage wide publication. We do, however, ask that any reprints or similar work be fully acknowledged, and you undertake not to publish the same or similar work without such acknowledgement.
AUTHOR-PUBLISHER RELATIONSHIP
As well as encouraging provocative work, we extend this collaboration to the pragmatics of book production. We therefore involve authors closely in the process of publicising and selling their work, and this is done by reaching an agreement with authors about the book's printing, binding, design and cover price.
Printing, binding and designing the book
Raw Nerve has a house style, but we always work from the content, rather than impose this style on to the book. If the inside design is integral to your work we will discuss this closely with you.
Cover design
We will talk about this with you, and will consider adapting any designs or ideas you may have, as well as deploying our in-house designer. We will not impose a cover design on you, although as we aim to keep the price of Raw Nerve Books as low as possible we will of course confer over what is achievable.
Remuneration
The Raw Nerve ethos of collaboration extends to the economics of publication, and we have devised a system that we think is fair to all parties
- If your work is published in print form, you will be entitled to a number of free copies of the book (agreed in advance).
- We ask authors to purchase an agreed number of copies of the book, at a discount (usually 30% off the retail price). You can give these copies away or sell them, at full retail price, to individuals but not libraries or bookshops. Effectively, this means that you can act as an agent for the books, and receive approximately 30% of the cover price on every copy you sell. This is not meant to be onerous, and we offer this deal as a positive and often more lucrative alternative to royalty payments, and as a direct means of involving the author in the publishing process. As our print runs can be quite small this does not necessarily mean a large financial commitment from you, and we will do all we can to publish a book we believe in.
- Once the book's costs are fully covered you will then be entitled to royalty payments of 10% of the cost of each book sold.
To summarize: You will be required to purchase a fixed number of books (decided between Raw Nerve and writer in advance), but are also entitled to buy as many copies as you want (subject to availability) at a discounted price – books that you may then sell on. Once Raw Nerve has recouped the cost of your book, you will also receive royalties.
------------Please contact us if you would like to discuss a piece of work before submission.