Quercus Publishing, an imprint of Hachette, is re-branding their speculative fiction imprint Jo Fletcher Books as Arcadia Books. It will remain the only imprint of Quercus that accepts unsolicited submissions and it will stay open to submissions of science fiction, fantasy, and horror manuscripts for adults. They will also now consider YA/Crossover books as long as the work will appeal to adult readers and can be published on an adult list.
The rebranding occurred in part because Jo Fletcher has left publishing and the imprint is now being led by Anne Perry who jointed Quercus after Fletcher left. Anne Perry also said “As our SFF and genre publishing at Quercus has grown rapidly over the last couple of years, we felt it was time to overhaul our ambitions and our priorities, to bring them in line with the breakneck pace of change in the SFF publishing world overall.” You can read more about the rebrand here.
Along with the new name the website was redesigned and they now have a silver fox as their logo. They will continue to work with many of the same authors.
The name Arcadia came from a publishing company started by Gary Pulsifer in 1996. Their list was sold to Quercus, who is only now using the name again.
Arcadia is established, have distribution, and have published a number of critically acclaimed authors. You can see their catalog here to get a better idea of what they have previously published. Please note that even though memoir and books belonging to other genres are listed in their catalog they are only open to unagented submissions of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. They are open to nonfiction in these genres, but only nonfiction that directly relates to the genre in some way. For example a book of nonfiction focused on movie monsters.
Their website is well organized. The focus is on selling books, not on recruiting new authors.
All submissions must be made via email. Send either the first 10,000 words of your novel or the first three chapters. They have formatting guidelines you must follow in order for your work to be considered.
You can read editor Anne Perry’s manuscript wishlist here. She implies in it that the submission guidelines directly on the website will be updated further, but I’m not sure when.
Include a cover letter and a one-page synopsis as a separate document. If you have not heard from them six months after submitting, assume rejection. They do not respond to submissions unless they are interested. Submit one book at a time only.
To learn more, read their full submission guidelines here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2024 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.
