Pen & Sword Books is an established and respected publisher of nonfiction. They are based in the UK. They are also the majority shareholder for Script Publisher Services, which is a major distributor. Pen & Sword Books has excellent distribution, primarily in the UK. They are best known for publishing specialist military history books, under their Pen & Sword imprint, but publish a range of nonfiction books under other imprints as well. You can see their full list of imprints here.
If you are serious about sending them a proposal, I recommend that you spend time focusing in on previous publications by the imprint most relevant to you, including spending time browsing books that were previously published by them.
As part of their submission proposal page they say “Pen and Sword authors come from a wide range of backgrounds. They are freelance writers, university lecturers, journalists, local historians, novelists, and people from many other walks of life with a passion for history. You don’t need to have already published a book to be considered, but if you have previous professional writing experience do tell us about it.”
They also say that the authors of successful proposals generally exhibit the following: “A good depth of knowledge, and a passion for exploring, their chosen subject area. A clear, accessible writing style. An understanding of the market their book would be going into and knowledge of existing titles in the area. A willingness to market their book using blogging, social media, as well as more traditional media.”
They have a detailed submission form that you have to fill out before submitting. They also state: “We’ll review every proposal that we receive, although due to the high volume of submissions we cannot always reply to unsuccessful proposals and we are not able to provide critiques of manuscripts.”
To learn more go here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2026 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.
