Last Updated: January 30th, 2025
This small Canadian press’s motto is “Books without bosses since 1977”. Please do not confuse them with Between the Lines Publishing, which is fiction-focused and which we have not reviewed.
They only publish nonfiction books in these subject areas: “politics and public policy, social issues, activism and social movements, development studies, critical race studies, Indigenous issues, history, sociology, popular education, the environment, gender and sexuality, social work, labour, globalization, criminology, technology, media, and culture”. You can learn more about their history as a press here.
They describe themselves as “proudly left-wing”. They also say that their authors are “academics, journalists, artists, and activists—all our authors hope their books will spark political and social change.” If this description does not resonate with you, please do not submit.
The books they publish cover both the academic and trade market. Some of their books have won prestigious academic awards, but they still always emphasize broader accessibility. You can get a feel for what they have published by spending time with their catalog here. Please only submit if you can see your book fitting within their current catalog.
Unlike many Canadian small presses, they do publish international authors although they do link mostly to Canadian resources for authors, and they do publish more Canadian authors than authors from outside of Canada.
They ask that interested authors submit proposals, and much prefer them to manuscript submissions.
They will only respond to proposals that follow their guidelines. Their guidelines are as follows:
- a cover letter stating your primary intent in writing the work, its main themes and objectives, your sense of its potential market including courses for which it might be appropriate, an explanation of what makes this a BTL book, a timeline for completion of the manuscript, and an estimate of its length;
- a 2-page outline of the whole manuscript—either its table of contents, if sufficiently detailed, or a schematic summary;
- a sample of your writing, ideally the introductory chapter and one other representative chapter;
- a brief list of the existing literature on the topic and an indication of how your book would be different;
- your resume (no more than 5 pages long).
You can learn more here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 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.
