Fiction & Non-Fiction Submission Guidelines

At a Glance

Submit one individual story — fiction or non-fiction — of 5,000 to 6,000 words.
Stories are pasted into the submission form, not attached. Italics survive the paste, and the word count is checked as you go.
Publishing is free. The reading fee is $1 through the end of 2026 (regularly $10) per submission.
Selected authors receive 10 copies and publication, with a unique ISBN & barcode, online bookstore presence, and all the trimmings. You will never be asked to commit to selling a certain number of copies, to round up pre-orders from friends and family, or to pay for cover art — none of the thinly-veiled vanity-press tricks. This is real publishing, not self-publishing.
Author copies are entirely optional — you never have to buy one. If you want extras, they are 50% off in lots of 100 or more; sell them yourself and keep the profit.
Copyright stays in your name. For the first 12 months only Prolific Press may reprint the story; after 12 months, publication rights are shared and you may reprint it anywhere — no permission needed, ever.
No reprints — stories must be previously unpublished, in print or online. Simultaneous submissions are welcome, and you may withdraw any time before acceptance.
Submit only through this online submission manager.
Please allow several months for a decision.

Story Chapbooks Explained

Alongside our poetry series, Prolific Press publishes single-story chapbooks: one piece of short fiction or narrative non-fiction, printed and bound as a small book of its own. A story of five to six thousand words fills a chapbook beautifully — long enough to carry real weight, short enough to be read in one sitting and handed to a friend. Non-fiction submissions should be true stories told with a storyteller's care: narrative essays, reported stories, personal histories — the tools of fiction in service of what actually happened.

Production Methods

Our chapbooks are printed in-house on either 24# or 28# archival-quality paper (for less bleed-through). Covers are printed in full color on 110lb paper (thick and durable). Chapbooks are moved to our trimming station where they are folded and bound by hand using a commercial-grade saddle stapler. Each book is carefully trimmed using a hand-operated 17″ guillotine trimmer, making the outside edge crisp (just like perfect-bound books have). Every book is sealed in a clear-plastic sleeve to keep it clean and new-looking until it is sold. The extra effort means our hand-crafted chapbooks are more expensive to produce, but beautiful and highly collectible. Quality is key — we build our books to last.

Submissions & Publication

Selected authors receive 10 copies and publication as payment for the story. Although chapbooks are not typically treated the same as full offerings in the marketplace, Prolific Press does purchase and provide a unique ISBN and barcode. We make this investment to help ensure that our chapbooks can be collected and traded long after they are out of print, further preserving the voice of the writer.

Writers often ask whether they own the copyright before registering it. Copyright and registration are related, but they are not the same thing; Observed.org, a trusted authority on copyright law, explains the difference in plain English.

Authors can leverage special discounts to profit from selling chapbooks at readings and events. Shipping is a flat rate of $10 no matter how many you purchase, chapbooks are priced at $10 per copy, and in quantities of 100+ authors receive 50% off.

To be completely clear: you pay for nothing. Publication is free — we pay for the editing, the design, the printing, and the ISBN. Author copies are entirely optional. You are never required to buy a copy, not one, and buying or not buying has no effect whatsoever on whether we publish you. The reading fee at submission is the only money that ever moves from you to us.

While publishing is free, in 2024 we changed our policy on reading fees. To prevent abuse and to combat the thousands of daily submissions generated by artificial intelligence, we charge a nominal reading fee per submission — $1 through the end of 2026, regularly $10. Our chapbooks are professional publications, not self-publishing. A professional will read and carefully consider the story, usually more than once, and the fee is what makes that reading time possible. Prolific Press is responsible for the book cover and layout and provides all accompanying editorial services.

How to Submit Your Story

Fiction and non-fiction stories are pasted directly into the submission form rather than attached as a file. The editor keeps your paragraphs, your italics, and your scene breaks (a line holding only *** becomes a printed scene divider), and it counts your words as you go — the form will not accept a story outside the 5,000–6,000-word range, and nothing you paste is ever trimmed for you. Please keep a copy of your story in your own files as well.

Rights After Publication

The copyright notice is in your name. The chapbook begins as your story's only home: we hold exclusive publication rights for the first year, so during that time the story may not be reprinted anywhere, in any form, except by us. That year is what lets a hand-made edition find its readers. When it ends, publication rights become shared: we may keep the story in print, and you may reprint your story anywhere, without asking our permission — no approvals, no fees, and no share of anything you earn.

In practice:

The first year is exclusive. From the day we publish until 12 months later, only Prolific Press may reprint the story — no journals, anthologies, collections, or websites in the meantime.
Everything opens at 12 months. One year after publication you may reprint the story wherever you like — journals, anthologies, another collection, a book of your own, anywhere — and you never need to ask. The rights are shared from that day forward.

That includes posting the story free online — after the year, that is your right. We only encourage you to think it over first: a chapbook is a small, deliberate edition, and part of what its readers and collectors hold is the knowledge that the story lives there. Once a story can be read anywhere for nothing, the edition becomes something different. The decision is always yours; we simply ask that it be a considered one.

If a project falls somewhere between those cases, just ask — we are not looking for reasons to say no.

What to Include When You Submit

Your full story, pasted into the form (5,000–6,000 words — one story per submission).
Your real name.
Your pen name (if any).
Your biography.
Number of words.
Your real physical address (not work or a PO box).
Your mailing address — where we will send your books.
Your email address.
Your phone number.

Submission Terms

By submitting, you acknowledge these terms.

You confirm that you are at least 18 years of age, or that a parent or guardian has signed on your behalf. You must be legally able to enter into a contract.
No reprints. You assert that your story has not been previously published anywhere, in print or online, and that you currently hold all future-use rights to it. (Once we publish, those rights are shared with the press on the terms set out under Rights After Publication above.)
You affirm that the submission is your own creation and that no part of it is in the public domain. Non-fiction must be true and must be yours to tell.
No AI-generated work. Your submission must be written by you. Work produced wholly or in part by AI tools or generative writing services is not eligible and will be rejected without further review.
One story per submission. If you have more than one story, please make a separate submission for each.
You may withdraw at any time before acceptance — instantly, from your account. Once accepted, please contact us to withdraw.
Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please withdraw promptly if your work is accepted elsewhere.
We do not print adult (XXX) material or books primarily focused on politics.

Allow several months for us to read and consider your work. Thank you for your kind consideration, and for cooperating with our guidelines.