Chelsea Green Publishing is aware that scammers impersonating our employees or claiming to be literary agents have been targeting authors and agents with false claims and offers. In some instances, these emails include the Chelsea Green logo, names or photographs of our staff, and/or fraudulent acquisition agreements. Chelsea Green Publishing will never request a fee for considering a manuscript or offer an acquisition agreement through a personal email account. Official Chelsea Green staff email addresses use the domain @chelseagreen.com.

Submission Guidelines

Chelsea Green specializes in books that promote the “politics and practice of sustainable living.”

Before you submit a query or proposal, please browse our website, look closely at our titles to see the kinds of books we publish, and carefully review our submission criteria. We receive more than 800 submissions annually and publish approximately 30 titles in the UK and US.

Submissions that do not follow our guidelines will not be considered or acknowledged.

We specialize in books on:

  • Organic gardening and market farming, from home- to professional-scale
  • Regenerative agriculture and permaculture with an in-depth, how-to approach
  • Local and global agricultural movements, and food politics
  • Animal husbandry and draft power
  • Functional medicine, herbalism, and food as medicine
  • Cutting-edge science interpreted for lay readers
  • Political or economic books with an original vision for a better future
  • Place-based environmental narratives
  • Fermentation, cheesemaking, baking, and other how-to approaches to food production
  • Cookbooks with unique, innovative approaches to cuisine
  • Renewable energy and energy conservation
  • Natural building
  • Simple living

We seldom publish books that are:

  • Regionally focused
  • Academic (although many of our books are adopted for academic courses)
  • Agricultural and gardening-based but do not promote organic methods
  • New Age or spiritual
  • Popular topics covered by many other books
  • Offering top-down political policy prescriptions
  • Anthologies

We do not publish:

  • Novels
  • Poetry
  • Children’s books

To submit a query for consideration:

A query letter should be one or two pages long and give an overview of your book’s topic, along with information about you as an author (who you are, why you are the right person to write this book, evidence that you will be able to complete a high-quality manuscript in a timely fashion). If we think there is a reasonable chance that we might pursue your book, we will request a full proposal.

To submit a proposal for consideration, include the following items in a single Word document:

  • A cover letter summarizing the book
  • A preliminary table of contents
  • An expanded table of contents with one- or two-paragraph summaries of each chapter
  • Marketing research such as:
    • Descriptions of other books on the same or similar topics, and an explanation of why your book is different
    • Any special sales potential (organizations that may want to buy large numbers of your book; specialty catalogs or stores that don’t usually sell books but might be interested in yours; events where attendees will be interested in your book)
    • Events where attendees will be interested in you as a speaker
    • Other countries where demand for your book might be high
  • Your target audience
    • Who they are—be specific
    • Why they will be interested in your book
  • Biographical material about you (expanded from that in the query letter)
  • Two sample chapters
  • Details on your art program, if you plan to have one—including types of images (photos, line illustrations, charts, graphs, or other); an estimate of how many of each type; and whether you envision the art program in color or black and white. If your book features photographs or illustrations, please attach samples of these separately. Do not embed them in your Word document.

Do not send files greater than 8MB.

Delivery

Via Email

We strongly prefer to receive query letters and proposals via email. If you are in the US, email materials to [email protected]. If you are in the UK, email materials to [email protected].

For a query, include the word “query,” your last name, and the book title in the subject line, i.e., “Query—Jones—Nature vs. Nurture.”

For a proposal, include the word “proposal,” your last name, and the book title in the subject line, i.e., “Proposal—Jones—Nature vs. Nurture.”

Via Postal Mail

If you do not have access to email and must send your query or proposal through the mail, please send by regular US mail. Submitted materials will be returned only if accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

Response Time

Due to the volume of submissions, response time can take several weeks. Thank you for your interest in Chelsea Green Publishing.