Indie Author & Artist Submission Guidelines

We love supporting independent authors and artists, particularly Midwest ones! 

1. What We’re Looking For

For books, we set the bar at “professionally produced” — not because we’re picky for the sake of it but because our customers expect quality:

•   Professionally edited: This matters!

•   ISBN & barcode: a valid ISBN and a scannable barcode.

•   Clean, professional printing: Home printing unfortunately won’t work for us.

For all other creations, we won’t know what we’re looking for until we find it, so try us!

A note about AI: We believe in authors and artists. We understand AI can be valuable to streamline workflow and for research, but we are firm in our requirement that the books & art we carry are created with the blood, sweat, and tears of thinking, feeling, messy, lovely humans.

2. How to Submit

Please:

1.Email us at hello@commonplacebooks.net with “Book/Art Submission” in the subject line and a brief note about your work (no attachments, please). Please paste a photo of the art piece / book cover within the body of the email, as well as any web addresses to your online presence where we can stalk you. 

2. Authors, please paste the first few pages (or some pics of the first few pages) into the body of the email.

3. We’ll get back to you within 4 weeks; if we don’t, please remind us!

As much as we’d love to see your face, please do not drop by the shop to discuss your work; then we’ll have to get awkward. Thank you for understanding! We appreciate your interest in Commonplace.