What to pitch? • When to pitch? • Where to pitch? • Who can participate? • How to participate? • Additional rules & information
What to pitch?
This event is for original, completed, unpublished manuscripts.
• Original means we don’t allow fanfiction.
• Completed means that it’s proofed, polished, and ready for submission. Please make sure you have revised the work with feedback from at least one other person such as a critique partner or an alpha/beta reader.
• Unpublished means you haven’t self-published it online (even for free), on Amazon, or in print. Sharing your work privately with beta readers or with a freelance editor doesn’t count.
• All genres and audiences are accepted, from picture books to adult, as well as works of different length and types such as novels, novellas, short story collections, poetry collections, and novels in verse.
• Original manuscripts in English only.
• No manuscripts written or edited (even partially) with generative AI / LLMs. Spell check or non-gen AI features of tools like ProWritingAid and Grammarly are fine.
When to pitch?
The next event will take place between January 19, 2026 and January 25, 2026.
• We will have a 48-hour window for you to submit your pitch(es), on Monday and Tuesday of the chosen week, so January 19-20, 2026.
• You can pitch up to three manuscripts, with a limit of one pitch per manuscript.
On Wednesday, the #SmallPitch team will review submissions and clean up our pitch database. Then, publishers will be able to review and request pitches between Thursday and Sunday. The requests will be sent to authors via email automatically during that time.
Where to pitch?
Pitches need to be submitted via a Google Form (link below), then will be uploaded on our own database for editors to browse and request. The form is open only during the 48 hour-submission window.
Who can participate?
| JANUARY SESSION | JULY SESSION |
| During the January session, the event is open to all marginalized and underrepresented authors* (agented or unagented) and small/indie press editors of new or established presses. | During the July session, the event is open to all unagented authors (previously published or not) and small/indie press editors of new or established presses. |
• Literary agents are not allowed to participate as agents, but they can participate as authors.
• Agented authors are not allowed to pitch during the July session. Agented authors who belong to an underrepresented group can pitch in January.
• Vanity presses and hybrid presses are not allowed to participate.
• Submission fee-based publishers are not allowed to participate, unless they agree to waive the submission fee for the authors whose pitches they request during the event.
• Editors from big 5 presses are not allowed to participate, especially if they only accept agented submissions.
• There are no restrictions on demographics for pitching authors during the July session. The January session is only for marginalized authors, but qualifying authors can choose to not self-identify if they do not feel comfortable in doing so.
• You can pitch from any country.
*You can learn more about the eligible categories and what “marginalized” and “underrepresented” means in our FAQ.
How to participate?
When filling out the Google Form, please follow these guidelines:
• Your pitch is limited to 400 characters (spaces included). The form won’t allow you to submit a longer pitch.
• Do NOT include hashtags for genres or other things in your pitch. Keep your 400 characters only for your pitch!
• Your author name will be displayed for editors to see on the request platform.
• Your email will NOT be displayed and will remain confidential. Only the members of the #SmallPitch team will see it, and we won’t share it.
• Double-check your email address when filling out the form. You won’t be able to update it after submitting your pitch, meaning that you won’t receive editor requests.
• There is no restriction on the number of genres you can pick, but we recommend to pick a maximum of 3. For subgenres, we simply recommend to pick the corresponding combination of genres, such as “Fantasy” and “Romance” for Romantasy, “Literary Fiction” and “Horror” for Literary Horror, etc.
• If you are pitching a non-fiction or another book for which none of the options listed under the “Length/Type” section works, please select “Other.”
• Moodboards are NOT allowed. The form will not allow you to upload a moodboard or other file. Multiple lines and emojis are allowed.
• The “Marginalized Authors” category is OPTIONAL. You are not required to self-identify. Please note that it will be a searchable field by editors.
Additional rules & information
• Don’t include links in your pitch.
• Use appropriate language. No racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other discriminatory or hateful content is allowed.
• If an editor/publisher requests your pitch, please follow their submission guidelines. These guidelines will be shared with you by email when they submit a request. It will be either a link to their submission guidelines on their website, and email address, and/or specific instructions.
• The publishers’ requests will come from smallpitchteam@gmail.com. We recommend that you whitelist our email address and/or check your spam folder during the request window. Unfortunately, our emails occasionally go into people’s spam folder.
• Reminder: a request to submit from a publisher is not a summon. You are never required to submit to a publisher.
• We check publishers participating in the event are not vanity or hybrid publishers, but we don’t vet them beyond these elements. Please do your due diligence to check a publisher is a good fit for you. While vanity publishers are not allowed to participate and we will do our best to weed them out, mistakes can happen. You shouldn’t be required to pay ANYTHING to publish with a small press. The money flows toward the author, even if it’s a only modest advance and/or royalties. You can join our Discord to talk about publishers with our other members and get some useful advice.
#SmallPitch, the big pitch event for small presses 