Bullshit Lit describes itself by saying they are,”Inspired by a stack of silly poems, Bullshit Lit is the antithesis to those flowery submissions calls for, like, “the deepest echo in your heartcanyon.” We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We like to see your worst. Your trash. Get funky with it. We love silly poems, nonsense prose, and lazy lore.” They were founded in 2021 in Philadelphia by Veronica Bennett.
They publish poetry, prose, fiction, art, and work that doesn’t fit nicely into any of those categories. Besides books they also have an online feature which is helpful in terms of figuring out what they are drawn to publish. You can see the work featured online here.
You can see their back catalog here. In 2024 they plan to publish 13 books this year. They have great covers.
They do not charge for submissions but they do charge $5 for expedited response times. They respond to expedited submissions within 2 months, and usually much quicker. They don’t say how long they take to respond to submissions without paying, unfortunately.
They are open to book length submissions in 2024 on June 8th, at 12:01 AM EDT to June 16th 11:59 PM EDT.
They ask for you to submit your whole manuscript, that is between 15 and 100 or so pages. This includes chapbook and full-length books. Submissions must be made via email with a subject line that includes the word “BOOK”.
In the email include a short third-person bio, social media links, and your pronouns. Cover letters aren’t required but they do say that it is nice to get some sort of feel for the author.
For more details about their submission period and any other calls for submissions, go here.
They are distributed by Asterism Books.
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.
