Most novelists send one email: please review my book. It is almost never answered, and the reason is not rudeness. Reviews of new fiction are commissioned by books editors out of publisher catalogues, months before the book reaches a shop. A writer who pitches a review is asking a publication to break its own process.
What a writer has that a painter does not is the ability to write the piece. You can offer an essay, an interview, an opinion, a piece of reporting. That is a request a magazine can accept, and it is the route most writers never try.
This guide covers what an editor needs from you, when to write, and where to send it. Every submission page in the list was opened and checked on 4 October 2026.
You are asking for one of three things
Before you write, decide which request you are making. They go to different desks, and mixing them is why pitches fail.
"Publish my story." This is submitting work to a literary magazine, and it obeys that magazine's own rules: reading windows, word limits, whether you may send the same piece to several places at once. Granta accepts submissions only during set reading periods. Wasafiri is closed to fiction, poetry and life writing at present. Litro states plainly that simultaneous submissions are welcome and asks you to withdraw if the piece is taken elsewhere. The Stinging Fly states the opposite: work must not be under consideration elsewhere. None of this is negotiable, and all of it is on the page.
"Write about my book." This is a review or an interview, and it is commissioned, not submitted. Through a publisher it goes to whoever handles publicity there. For a self-published book, or a book from a very small press, it goes to you, and you are asking a critic to spend a week of their own time on something they did not choose.
"Take my text." This is the third request and the least used. You pitch an editor an idea for an essay, an interview, a column or a piece of criticism, where your book is the reason the piece exists, not the subject of it. Nobody has to like your novel. Somebody might like your argument about ferry engineers, or about why a decade of British writing failed to notice something.
Spend most of your effort here. It is the only one of the three where you arrive as a supplier rather than a supplicant.
What the calendar decides
Publication date is the axis the whole business turns on.
Reviews are planned ahead. Proof copies go out to reviewers and journalists while the book is still being typeset, which for a hardback is three to four months before publication and rather longer for some titles. If your book comes out in March, the people who will write about it were contacted in the previous autumn.
Advance copies are the currency here. A finished copy, or a clean PDF of the text, sent to a named critic or editor before publication, is what turns a title into coverage. Without one, there is nothing to review.
A book that came out six months ago is not news. What is still news: a paperback edition, a translation, a prize, a festival, an anniversary of the year it is about, an essay prompted by it. Pick one and write about that.
Reviews also run under embargo before publication day. That is the publisher's or the author's decision, not the critic's, and it is why a review does not appear on the morning a book arrives. Ask who holds the date rather than working around it.
Self-published books and national coverage
The plain fact is that national book pages do not commission reviews of self-published titles, because the trade is organised around publisher catalogues. Write to a national books desk about a self-published novel and you will usually get no answer.
Where self-published work does get covered is smaller and worth targeting: regional papers, whose arts pages have gaps; publications that write about a subject rather than about new arrivals, where your book is evidence for their argument; literary magazines, which take stories and essays from anyone; and podcasts, which are short and forgiving.
The third route above is unaffected by who published you. If the idea is good, the imprint is not the first question an essay editor asks.
An extract or an original essay
An extract from your novel is not an essay. It carries rights questions you may not have thought about, because serial rights often sit with the publisher rather than the author. Ask your publisher who owns them before you offer an extract anywhere, and do not assume an author who has kept copyright has kept every right.
Original essays about the material are easier and take more people. Why you wrote the book, what you cut, what a research trip was like, what you found out about your city in 1994. These have no rights problem at all, and an essay editor can place them next to other writing on the same subject.
What to prepare
- One sheet about the book. Title, publisher, publication date, ISBN, format, extent, an abstract of 80 to 100 words, one line about you, and a contact. This is called an AI sheet or a press sheet, and it is the only document most writers ever need to build.
- The cover, at print resolution, with the spine.
- One author photograph, with the photographer's name and the year. If someone else took it, ask whether you may use it.
- A finished copy on request: a PDF or a printed book. Send it when asked, not in the first email.
- One link where all of it sits together, opening without a login.
- Two or three published pieces, if you have them.
The one sentence about the book
Most authors describe their book in a way no stranger can repeat. Compare:
a novel about love, loss and identity
a ferry engineer hides a stowaway for eleven crossings
The first describes most of the fiction published this decade. The second can be pictured, argued with, and put in a headline. A books editor planning a feature needs the second one in your first email, because it is the thing the piece would be about.
When the year helps you
Autumn is the densest publishing season in Britain, and the prizes and festivals around it generate coverage. The Booker Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Hay Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival all run on published dates, and each has a press office handling its own authors and longlists.
Check the current year's dates on the official site before you build anything around them. Festival programmes and prize cycles move, and a wrong month in a pitch is a small thing that makes the rest of it look careless.
A shortlisting is news on the day it is announced. A longlisting is smaller news, but it is a legitimate reason to write to the regional and subject publications in your area about what the listing means to a reader.
City by city: the book tour
A reading in a bookshop or a library is news in the town where it happens and nowhere else. Treat every stop as its own small pitch: the local paper or news site, the local radio station, the venue's own mailing list and the city's event listings. Write to each of them three to six weeks ahead, with the date of that town in the subject line.
Listings want four things: the date and time, the venue with its address, a booking link and one image. Some take events directly and at no charge. Leeds Inspired says that adding an event is free. Londonist asks for event details by email around two weeks ahead. In Oxford, Daily Info has a page for listing an event. City societies in Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester and Oxford take event details and say they pass a tour on to the other cities on the route: see, for example, Oxford and Edinburgh.
Three mistakes particular to writers
Asking for a review from people who commission them from publishers. You are asking someone to break a process to do you a favour. Send an idea instead.
Attaching the whole manuscript. A literary magazine asks for a story of a stated length; a newspaper will not read a novel attached to an email. Use the submission system they name, and follow the length they ask for.
Writing "my book has been out for a while" as a reason to write. That sentence tells the editor the news has passed. Lead with what is happening now.
A pitch you can adapt
The example below is invented. Nothing in it refers to a real author, book or publication.
Subject: Essay pitch: the crossing, the crew and eleven years of a British ferry route
Dear [name],
I write about work, and about the places work disappears from. For eight years I crewed a ferry on the [route], and my debut novel grew out of one winter on that crossing.
The argument I would make: the route is scheduled to be cut in [year], and nobody has written down what a two-hour daily crossing does to the four towns it connects. I have notes from eleven crossings, the union records, and three former crew members who agreed to talk.
I would like to write this for you because your writing on [topic] is the standard I am aiming at. I can deliver 1,800 words in two weeks. Two published pieces are here: [one link].
With thanks, [Name, email]
It runs to about a hundred and thirty words. It pitches a piece rather than a favour, gives the editor an argument, shows the reporting behind it, names a length and a deadline, and says why that publication.
For the mechanics of the email itself, see How a pitch is read.
Where to pitch
The list gives what each publication says on its own page. Terms change; open the page before you send. Two pages were closed to unsolicited work when this list was checked on 4 October 2026, which is itself worth knowing: Psyche and Aeon both state they are not accepting pitches at present.
Aeon
What they take. The Essay, 2,500 to 5,000 words; says it takes no news commentary or book reviews.
What their page asks for. Pitch through the form; a first draft is not a submission. Says a piece runs from about three months after a good draft to publication.
ArtCulture UK
What they take. Reviews, features, interviews and essays on literature among other arts; occasionally short fiction or poetry from established writers, on enquiry.
What their page asks for. A pitch through the form: the angle, why now, two or three links. Says it replies within about ten working days. Says it does not want full manuscripts or press releases as articles.
ArtCulture UK: submissions guidelines
Creativity's UK
What they take. Long-form essays, criticism and reviews; artists submitted for features.
What their page asks for. The idea and a link to something you have written. Says every pitch gets an answer, and it would rather say no quickly than leave you waiting.
Electric Literature
What they take. Short stories, personal narratives, cultural criticism, poetry and flash through Submittable; criticism pitches by email.
What their page asks for. A subject line in the form given on the page, then the subject of the essay and the argument; 3,500 words or less. Says it does not accept reviews or academic essays, and asks to be told if a piece is accepted elsewhere.
Granta
What they take. Fiction and non-fiction, in set reading periods.
What their page asks for. One complete story or essay at a time, most submissions 3,000 to 6,000 words, first publication only. Says it charges a fee for full-length prose, with a set number of free places for writers on low incomes, and that it cannot comment on work.
Literary Hub
What they take. Craft, criticism, reported pieces and personal essays; says it does not take original poetry or fiction.
What their page asks for. Two or three paragraphs on what you want to write and why, plus links to previous work.
Literary Hub: how to pitch Literary Hub
Litro
What they take. Fiction, flash, essays, nonfiction, poetry, art and audio; general submissions open from 1 September 2026.
What their page asks for. Fiction around 3,000 words, essays up to 2,000, flash up to 1,000, up to three poems. Says simultaneous submissions are welcome and asks you to withdraw promptly if taken elsewhere.
London Review of Books
What they take. Poems, reviews, reportage, memoir, articles and blogposts.
What their page asks for. Email or post to the editorial address. Says that if you have not heard within three weeks you should assume it does not intend to publish, and asks that nothing made or edited with AI is sent.
London Review of Books: submissions
Mslexia
What they take. A magazine for women's writing: seven routes for fiction, five for poetry, eight for nonfiction, and pitches for articles and interviews at any time.
What their page asks for. The route that fits the piece, then the piece. Says it commissions magazine articles in March, June, September and December.
Psyche
What they take. Ideas, Guides, In-depth Guides, Turning Points first-person essays and Portraits; says it publishes no book reviews.
What their page asks for. An idea rather than a finished draft. Says it cannot respond to every enquiry and will make contact if it wants the piece.
Psyche: write for Psyche, currently closed
The Stinging Fly
What they take. Short fiction, novel extracts, nonfiction and poetry from Irish and international writers.
What their page asks for. One category per submission period, and the work must be unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere. Says it aims to contact everyone within four months of closing.
Wasafiri
What they take. Interviews and peer-reviewed critical academic articles at present; fiction, nonfiction and poetry closed.
What their page asks for. An article of 6,000 to 9,000 words, or an interview of 4,000 to 5,000, through its submissions portal. Says it decides within nine to twelve months after double peer review.
Two notes on reading the list. A reading window is not a queue: Granta opens only in set periods, and the dates are on its page. And one title on this list charges a fee for full-length prose submissions. That is stated on its page, and it is not a judgement on your work.
Questions writers ask
Can I send a short story to several magazines at once? It depends entirely on whose rules you are following, and the answers differ. Litro welcomes it and asks you to withdraw if the story is taken. The Stinging Fly requires that the story not be under consideration elsewhere. Check the page of every magazine you are submitting to, before you send anything, and treat the strictest one as binding on all of them.
Do national newspapers review self-published books? Almost never. National book pages commission from publisher catalogues, and a self-published title is not in them. Regional papers, subject publications, literary magazines and podcasts are the realistic routes, and the essay route works regardless of who published you.
Should the pitch come from me or from my publisher? If you have a publisher, the publisher. They hold the catalogue relationship, the review copies and the embargo, and a publicist sending to books editors is doing their job. If you are self-published or with a very small press, it comes from you, and the sooner the better.
Is an extract from my book a good pitch? Rarely, unless you have the serial rights. Ask who owns them. An original essay about the book, its subject or its research is easier to place and has no rights attached to it.
Is a magazine missing from this list, or has one of these pages changed? Tell the Journal and the list will be corrected.
