Great Authors Online will make a more sincere effort to read your submission than anyone else in the business. As we are not a vanity publisher, you will receive an honest and impartial evaluation of your manuscript's potential. We do, however, insist that you read the guidelines and follow the instructions for submission. Failure to read and follow the directions can result in being criticized by persons very practiced in the use of the English language. It is a fate that no ego should be required to endure.

GAO accepts several types of manuscripts, but our current emphasis is on Science Fiction. The story can take place in any time frame, past, present, or future, but has to occur in a world different in some significant way from our everyday life. The acceptable story lines are endless in number. The story can explore a possible future world, take a new look at the past, or concern the possible effects of social or technical change in the near present or the future.

We do not comment on novels or stories that we have not seen. No text, no comment.

Novels should be 90,000 to 120,000 words in length, and they should be finished. We will also consider novelettes that are about 50,000 words as e-book stories.

The usual warning applies. There are NO good stories about human cloning. There are, however, endless good stories about the people who invent cloning, get cured, suffer, or who are persecuted because of cloning.

As an editor, I have a strong preference for stories with a strong plot. It does no good to write 300 poetic pages of perfect prose about a wondrous world, if no one sees a point in reading about it.

One more hint. If, in your synopsis, you see any of the following words: Clan, Matriarch, Goddess, Dragon, Amulet, Witch, Potion, Undead or Spell, you would probably get a better reception elsewhere. We publish Science Fiction and have a strong sense of the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy. Our readership is primarily young, educated males who do not read love stories or care about witchcraft. They usually prefer stories that have technology as a springboard and adventure as the point.

When considering whether or not to submit your manuscript, you should be also aware that PC does not play at Great Authors Online. Not all of the females in our books are kick boxing heroines with PhD’s in nuclear physics. Some are just decoration. The males do not apologize for the crime of being born into the wrong gender, and not all people are equal. Your book need not be cast with a demographic analysis at hand. Your characters might be all black, all white, or spotted green and moving with tentacles, and we don’t care if you occasionally offend someone. People who are easily offended don’t buy much science fiction.

Submission guidelines
All submissions should be electronic and in a common medium. Word is good, OpenOffice is just as good, RTF acceptable, and PDF grudgingly accepted. Include the entire work. We can stop reading any time we want to and don’t need to be limited to the first thirty pages or the juiciest parts.

Embed your information in the same document. Begin with your identification on the first page: name, physical address, email, and phone number. A short bio is helpful. The second page should begin with the word count and a synopsis. That is one firm rule, no synopsis, no read.

Remember that an acceptable synopsis is a complete short version of your story, and is usually about a page long. All major characters and plot events should be shown. This is a complete digest of the plot rather than a teaser blurb that might go on a jacket, and is, word for word, usually much harder to write than the original story. The synopsis must be complete. If, after reading the synopsis,the editor does not know exactly how the book ends, he will not read even the first paragraph of the novel.

Then the manuscript. Keep it all in one document so that things do not get separated. Zip the document if you know how and have the tools.

Click here to email us the entire package. There is no need for the traditional self addressed, stamped envelope, as we will reply by email or telephone.

Rodger Olsen
Editor, Great Authors Online