Updated April 28th, 2024: They went under quickly and all that was really shared was a twitter post here, with the sreenshot below (from the founding editor)
Polis Books is an independent publisher of fiction and nonfiction, founded in 2013. Their focus is on publishing new voices. They are a technologically driven company. They publish print and digital books.
Polis Books was founded by Jason Pinter. Mr. Pinter had over a decade of experience in editorial, marketing and publicity for a variety of publishers including Random House, St. Martin’s Press, and The Mysterious Press.
Polis Books offers a small advance to every author they publish. They negotiate royalties on a book by book basis. They have good distribution and I have seen their books in brick and mortar bookstores.
In terms of fiction they are currently accepting mystery (including cozies, thrillers, procedural, and suspense books), science fiction, women’s fiction, contemporary literature, horror, romance, and erotica. They also publish YA.
In terms of nonfiction they are open to submissions of humor/essays, sports, and pop culture.
They are not interested in submissions outside of these categories. They ask that authors submit the first three chapters of their work along with a query letter. If you have not heard from them after 12 weeks, it is safe to assume rejection. They only email authors if they are interested in reading more. This is unfortunate, but becoming more of a standard practice across the publishing industry.
The query letter and the chapters should be word attachments and not placed in the body of the submission email. All submissions must be made via email.
You can read their full submission guidelines here. You can learn more about the company as a whole here.
