Frequently Asked Questions

What stories are you interested in?

We only publish works within the Mystery/Suspense/Thriller category that broadly fit our tagline: “North of Cozy; South of Noir.” If you’re not sure whether your novel fits, it probably doesn’t.

Minimum length: 15,000 words

Maximum length: Whatever it takes to tell your story. We don’t care as long as we’re flipping pages, wondering what is going to happen next.

Language: American English

Setting: United States or Canada or someplace we don’t have to research location facts (e.g.. a fictional island off the Antarctica Peninsula would be fine).

Contemporary or Futuristic. No historical (we don’t have the ability to make sure your historical world is accurately portrayed).

We are not into pornography, gratuitous sex or violence, or works intended for children or middle-aged. YA to codgers is fine. Sex and violence are part of life and part of mystery/suspense/thrillers; just make sure it is part of the underlying story and its characters.

Most important: When we get to the end of your submission and congratulate you on what a fine story you wrote.

Second most important: As your mother probably told you, you only have one chance to make a good first impression. While part of what we do as a publishing house is try to catch typos and fix grammar errors, if the manuscript you provide is littered with them and misspellings, we’ll assume you really don’t care about your product. That makes us ask, why should we?

What are Wolf’s Echo Press’s Publication Terms?

We will contract for exclusive worldwide rights for the English-language electronic and print versions of your manuscript for a minimum of three years. All rights will revert to the author upon cancellation of the contract by either party. If you are unable to provide exclusive, worldwide electronic and print English-language rights for your novel, do not submit your manuscript to us.

We are not interested in producing audio books. (We love them, but we can’t do anything better than you can do on your own, so why pay us?)

We also do not handle foreign language rights.

What are Wolf’s Echo Press’s Royalty Terms?

Wolf’s Echo Press pays royalties equal to 50% of net revenue for print AND electronic books.

Wolf’s Echo Press issues quarterly royalty statements. Payments are currently made utilizing PayPal, so authors will be required to have a PayPal account. Payments are made within 60 days of the royalty statement, provided the outstanding balance is at least $50. Even if royalties due never exceed $50 in a calendar year, royalties will be paid at least once per calendar year.

Wolf’s Echo Press will pay US domestic PayPal fees on royalties earned. Should payment be made to a non-US resident or account, any additional charges shall be borne by the author.

Does Wolf’s Echo Press Pay Advances Against Royalties?

Occasionally, but when we do, they are small token payments. If you are looking for a large advance, this is not the press for you.

I can self-publish and retain all royalties. Why should I use Wolf’s Echo Press?

We are so glad you asked. We look at book publishing as a cooperative enterprise between us and the author. You wrote the book, and you polished it as well as you could—or at least as much as you chose. Here’s what happens after we accept your novel:

1. You’ll first work with Jim Jackson, who will provide a developmental edit for your work. Although he may note errant commas along the way, the main areas Jim will consider and offer suggestions for are story inconsistencies, character inconsistencies, theme development, pacing, sub-plots, and character arcs—all with the intent to bring out the best in your story.

2. Once we’ve locked down the story, we’ll also provide your work with copyediting and proofreading. Your name and our name are both on the title page. Producing an 80,000-word, error-free book is nigh to impossible, but we want to come close.

3. We layout the print copy so it is clear, readable, and attractive. Check out any of our books to get a feel for our style.

4. We convert your book into electronic formats. Depending on your marketing plan, we will produce a Kindle version and (if publishing wide) an ePub version. Again, check out one of our books to evaluate our product.

5. We develop both electronic and trade paperback covers (often two slightly different covers for CreateSpace and IngramSpark). We provide free ISBN for both print and electronic formats.

6. We load content to online sites and Print-on-Demand publishers such as KDP and IngramSpark.

7. We collect, report, and pay royalties to you.

8. We provide you with IRS Form 1099 each year in January, which makes your tax return easier to compile.

9. If readers find typos, we’ll modify the electronic versions of your book to make the changes. If there is sufficient continuing interest in the print versions of your book, we’ll upload changes there as well.

10. If we agree to one of your marketing efforts, we’ll share the costs with you.

Why do I need a marketing plan?

Simply put, if you don’t implement a marketing plan, your book won’t sell. If your book doesn’t sell, we can’t recoup the investments we make in your book. If we don’t make money, we go out of business.

What should I include in my marketing plan?

Let’s start with the basics, stuff you would need if you were self-publishing. As you think of this material, consider that over 100,000 novels are published each year. Why should someone read yours?

(1) Give us a promotional blurb of no more than forty words that tells potential readers why they should read your novel.

(2) Provide a back cover teaser of 100-200 words.

(3) To the extent you have them, provide us with your website, blog, and social links.

(4) What do you plan to do to help get the word out and sell this book? (If you’re not sure what a marketing plan looks like, do an internet search on “Book Marketing Plan” to get a feel for what others are doing.)

How do I submit my manuscript?

Electronically, but only during an open submission period. If you submit your manuscript when we’re not reading, well, we won’t read it.

Please email your submission package to us at subs [@] wolfsechopress.com. If you physically mail something to us, we’ll be ticked because it means we’ll feel obligated to shred it or burn it in our burn barrel. We hate waste. Your electronic package should consist of the following items:

Cover email:

Subject : your last name [slash] the working title of your work. For example if Herman Melville were submitting Moby Dick the subject would be Melville/Moby Dick.

In the body of the email provide

full actual name

pen name (any you plan to use)

manuscript word count

previous publication history, if any

whether this work is part of a series, and the status of the rest of the series (for example, this is book one, the first draft of book two is complete – or whatever)

two “readalikes” (Melville would say if you like X and Y, you’ll like Moby Dick)

The following statement: With this submission, I state that no other publisher is currently evaluating this manuscript, and I currently grant Wolf’s Echo Press an exclusive evaluation period of thirty days, during which time I or my agents will not provide any other publisher with this manuscript for evaluation. [If for some reason it is not possible for you to give this statement, feel free to contact us and tell us what the issue is and we can work out a solution.]

Sign the body of the email with /s/[your real name]

6 separate attachments (Word document or Rich Text File format)

Your complete manuscript (see FAQ on formatting suggestions)

40-word promotional blurb

100-200-word back-cover blurb

1-page (single spaced) synopsis for the entire book. Make sure to include the ending.

An author bio (about 100 words)

Your marketing plan (see FAQ for what to include)

How do I need to format my manuscript?

At this stage, we pretty much don’t care. We’re going to take your Word or Rich Text Format document and read it. However, if you want to impress us with your style, here are a few suggestions:

1. Do not use tabs to indent. We use Styles for our formatting and tabs are like throwing a bunch of sharp spikes on the road to a perfect document. We may avoid all the problems, but more likely we’ll get a flat tire, which involves a bunch of cursing, finding the damn jack, and eventually replacing the tire. You get the idea.

2. Do use headers to label your manuscript. We generally use something like Author Last Name/Title/Page # in the upper right corner. Depending on where we physically are, we might print your manuscript, and if we do, we’ll accidentally shuffle the pages, and if you don’t have the pages labeled . . . well, just have the header and it won’t be a problem.

3. Use a standard looking font. We’ll convert it to our own eventually, but if you use something that is hard for us to read, we probably won’t. Black only. Use italics. Don’t use bold for emphasis; italics work. Underline only if you are referring to something that is actually underlined.

4. End your manuscript with The End – it makes it clear we haven’t lost the last few pages.

5. Common practice says to provide your manuscript double spaced, or 1.5 spacing. Whatever. We’ll probably read it on a Kindle and the first thing we’ll do is change it to single-spaced, so if you want to send that, go for it.

6. Start chapters on a new page.

7. When scenes change within a chapter, use a scene break symbol. Centered asterisks or pound signs work well (* * * or ###). If it’s clear, it’s fine for our reading pleasure.

As you can tell, we’re not getting hung up on formatting at this point. Why force you to jump through hoops just so we can read your story. There’s plenty of time to format during the editing process.

How will I know if you’ve received my submission?

You will receive one or two automatic responses, either

(1) Thanking your for your submission, or

(2) Reminding you that our submissions are closed.

If you are not making a submission, use our regular email address.

Do you send rejection notices?

We asked for an exclusive thirty-day period. If we choose not to proceed, we owe it to you to let you know as soon as we decide. We don’t have the resources to provide detailed feedback regarding why your manuscript did not fit our needs.