Please read this WHOLE post. I didn’t write it for giggles.

First. When you email me, use an email tracker. This one will let you know when I’ve opened your email. Start timing an expectation to receive a response from when I open it, not from when you send it.

My slush pile is towering. Honestly. I had no idea how many writers were out there.

I’ve had to restructure how I approach things with regards to the press due to my mental and physical health.

As much as I love the idea of the press, and feel it’s needed, it’s an emotional and physical drain on me. One I don’t make any money at doing.

So I’m implementing some rules (for myself, and for querying authors).

One of the big ones is that if you send me a query for something I don’t work with, I’m not going to waste my time responding. If you’d read all of this post, you’d know what I look for.

If you misgender me or if you send me something that is way outside my reading preferences or what I’m looking for? I will not be reading the query, nor will I be responding to it.

If the subject line is a string of ‘fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: etc…, you guessed it. Not even going to bother opening it, much less reading it.

If you’re expecting the professional courtesy from me of reading the query and responding to it, then you owe me the professional courtesy to follow my rules.

This is a labor of love for me, and if you can’t do the work of reading my guidelines, and following them, I don’t see why I should read your query.

Please understand that this is SUCH a subjective business. If I reject your query, I’ll do my best to tell you why. It’ll likely just be that I didn’t love it enough.

Because I don’t get paid for this work, (seriously, even with the pub’s percentage on anything, I won’t earn a living wage at this for a long time, if ever) I have to absolutely, hands down, LOVE your book or story to go out of my way to usher it into the world.

All I have is my time and skills. I have to use these to the best way to make a living for myself, and sadly, that means that the press is the last thing for me.

I do paid freelance editing, sensitivity reading, and writing all before I do anything for the press. Which means it can take forever for me to even open the email, much less respond. Which is why I tell you to exhaust all other options for publication before turning to us.

It has to be that way, and I’m sorry for that. You as the author, will have a much easier and better time learning to self-publish. (I say that as both a self-pubbed AND traditionally pubbed author) I truly believe it’s the future of books.

I officially founded Multifarious Press in December of 2016. Though the idea had been born over a year before. Multifarious means diversity. That’s the end goal of my press, to provide a home to diverse authors and stories that I LOVE, and a place for people to find quality titles with the diversity they’re looking for.

While diversity is the founding precept, if one of the editors at MFP likes your pitch during a pitch event, do feel free to submit, as we are open to submissions across the board within our realms of interest.

Mostly, as an editor, I want the stories you had to write because you couldn’t find enough of them to read. Send me those.

Send me heartrending literary mash-ups that straddle genres and leave you thinking about them for weeks after.

Send me to the dictionary, rip my heart out, stitch it back together again and leave me lusting for more.

THOSE stories. You know the ones.

Multifarious is open to all age ranges of stories, but we each prefer different ones. (Editor profiles are on the website)

I’m open to select, charming, middle grade, usually with fairy tale retellings concealing a literary message but also talking animals or animal led adventures.

For picture books (illustrated, or can be illustrated only, please) touching on personally important issues to me or my kids. (Own-voices autism, being queer, mixed-race, bullied, dyslexia, color-blindness, et cetera.)

I’m a huge muscle car and motorcycle lover, so those and horses are a good fit for me with regard to sports, especially in Romance or WF. I need more!

I am not a good fit for redeeming the -ism/ist storylines. Don’t send me a redeemed racist/rapist racism/rapism story. It ain’t gonna fly with me. No Nazis, especially in romance. Just… no.

I’m likely to shy away from Christian centered narratives. There are many good editors for those stories, I am not one of them.

I prefer erotic paranormal romance, historical romance, fantasy and science fiction. What I REALLY want are autistic leads, polyamorous and kinky are a huge plus!

If you’re sending me a piece with ‘erotic’ material? Don’t use euphemisms. Write it down and dirty or don’t bother me with it. My least favorite euphemism that I’ve seen was ‘mushroom headed pleasure rod’ no. Just no. Manhood will also be an auto-reject.

I’m not 12, I don’t like most 70s and 80s era romance, so don’t send me stuff written like that.

For there to be sex in a book, I also need it to be driven by the plot, it can’t be just erotica.

(Definitions of different subgenres of sexy romance can be found here.)

Heat levels for my press range from one flame to five flames. One = no sex, five = 5 or more sex scenes with open door scenes and graphic description.

While I prefer levels three to five, regardless, it has to have a point, the story has to drive the sex, or it’ll be a nope.

My pronouns are xie/xem/xyr and Mx. I absolutely will auto-reject based on being misgendered (I’m non-binary).

Take a look at our editors and follow the standard submissions formula. C.T. is definitely the person for YA. I like DARK YA (IE: Assassin’s Apprentice, Mask of Shadows, Night Angel trilogy, Miranda & Caliban) but I’m a better fit for Adult, MG, or PB.

If we offer a contract, it’s because we love your story. One of us has to absolutely adore your story if we’re to put in the investment to publish it.

You’ve probably heard it before, but this is a subjective business. It’s no different for us. You and your book will be treated well. Honesty, it seems, is hard to come by in this business. Do make time to read the open letter on the multifariouspress.com website.

Submissions should be a query, the first 2 chapters or 50 pages (whichever YOU feel gives ME the best representation of your work) and a 2-3 page synopsis.

Yes, I know. The synopsis, I’m an author too, but the synopsis tells me a lot about your story, so yeah. Send one.

I tend to respond quickly, (sometimes as quickly as half an hour, depending on where I am in the projects I’m working on, but it can take me weeks to even get to your email in my slush pile) and I always ask for the full manuscript if I’m interested.

If I’ve requested material, please add REQUESTED MATERIAL in the subject heading, because that goes to a different folder in my email system.

If I’m not interested, I do my best to tell you why, sadly, it often comes down to ‘it’s subjective’ but if something, in particular, threw me off, I do my best to tell you that. All of my editors at MFP do the same thing.

Send to: Submissions AT multifariouspress DOT com

If you’re sending to a specific editor from MFP (C.T. or Kaelan) please follow this format for the subject line:

QUERY: TITLE Age Category (IE Adult)/Genre for EDITOR NAME 

AGE = Age range of your book, not YOUR age. (Picture Book, Middle Grade, Young Adult, Upper Young Adult, New Adult (we encourage using NA for ALL genres, not just romance) and Adult, these are typically typed as the first initials: PB, MG, YA, UYA, NA, A)

Title your submission materials using this format please:

TITLE_AUTHOR NAME_Synopsis/full manuscript/sample

We all use e-readers to read submissions and you’d be surprised how many people just write ‘manuscript’ on the file. It can get confusing and it slows down response time.

We DO respond to all queries, it can be anywhere between half an hour and 6 to 10 weeks depending on our individual workloads. If you don’t hear from us within 6 weeks, please gently nudge us. We are completely behind as of January 2018. I had no idea how many authors with good stories that were out there. I will respond. It’ll take time though.

CURRENTLY WE ARE RUNNING AT ALMOST FOUR MONTHS RESPONSE TIME ON FULL MANUSCRIPT REQUESTS. Initial queries are still 6-10 weeks.

Do take a look at our profiles for MFP, we each acquire and prefer to read different things. But honestly, what I’m looking for, regardless, is the different.

Thank you for considering us.

It shouldn’t need to be said, not in 2017, but to be clear; I’m open (as are all of MFP’s editors) to any submission regardless of author’s race, religion, country of origin, sexual or gender identification, et cetera.

“Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day.”

—  Author Unknown