New Guidelines for The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses
Submissions to the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2027 opened on August 1st and will close for submissions on September 14th. Follow us on social media to make sure you don’t miss out on our entry announcement and long-list.
The Republic of Consciousness Foundation has been awarded charitable status. With this comes certain responsibilities. The bullet points below aim to set out as clearly as possible our aims and purpose, and entrance eligibility for the prize.
Charitable Purpose as set out in our Constitution:
To promote for the public benefit the art of literature and in particular to promote literature of high merit published by small presses in the UK and ROI by providING grants to practitioners and produceRs of literary fiction and the promotion of such literature to the public.
Please see this short blog piece for the types of books we tend to reward.
Why we’ve Changed the Eligibility Criteria
Since I founded the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses in 2016, the small press landscape has significantly altered. Our first winner, Fitzcarraldo Editions, now publishes 4 Nobels winners; And Other Stories has an US operation; Galley Beggar has had a Booker short-listed book; Charco and Tilted Axis, along with Fitzcarraldo Editions, seem to be permanent members of the International Booker Prize short list. This is what success looks like. I can’t claim the prize has had a much to do with this new landscape, but it does mean we have to look at what we’re doing in light of it. Our founding insight, if you will, was that the Big Five could afford to publish risk-taking books because they had best-selling authors to underwrite (no pun intended) the loss, but they had almost completely ceased to do so. This meant that publishers who could least afford to take the financial risk were left to publish the most risk-taking work. A deep irony that needed some kind of recognition and action. Therefore our founding principle was to support, to the degree that we could, small presses exposing themselves to financial risk because of the creative risks they were willing to take for the broader literary landscape.
But the changing landscape mapped out at the top has required us to think hard about what we do. How do we make sure the money we have is awarded to the presses who most need it. Over the first seven years, we defined a small press by personnel – 5 or fewer fulltime workers. But this was difficult to assess because there are a lot of part-time and freelancers involved. Last year we changed it to 12 or fewer books. Both are blunt tools. Maybe 8 of the 12 books are new editions of previously successful out-of-print books? Is it fair that a publishers with a substantial arts council funding, publishing 12 books, is in the same race as a publisher who doesn’t have any funding and only publishes 3 books a year? And size is relative. Compared to Faber, Fitzcarraldo Editions is small, but it more than 10 times the size of Peirene, who have been going a similar length of time. Success also isn’t a reliable indicator. Galley Beggar has had a number of breakout books, but it is still only publishing 3-4 books a year and kept going by a team of two. Financial risk is less clear-cut. A number of small presses now have National Portfolio Organisation funding, which contributes to core costs, cushioning the impact of low sales for risk-taking books. This is obviously important support, but in many ways, it’s a large scale version of our founding principle.
With all this in mind, the Trustees have agreed new eligibility criteria:
· A small press must be completely financialLY independent of any other business - larger publisher, bookshop etc.
And two of the following three:
· Publish 8 or fewer original titles a year
· 4 or fewer fulltime workers (regular freelancers must counted)
· A turnover, including all grants, of less than £100,000 per year in 2 of the last three financial years.
The information on this year’s judges can be found here.
Entry Information
Only one entry per press
Fiction titles only
All titles to have been published in 2026 calendar year
All books must be written by human author(s) and, if applicable, translated by human translator(s). Books that include any text written using Artificial Intelligence technology are not eligible for the Prize.
Entry requires a completed submission form, an Advance Information Sheet (1 side of A4), a pdf of the work, a hi-res image of the cover and author / translator, and in order to keep up with information the press must subscribe to https://therepublicofconsciousness.substack.com/
Following successful electronic submission, entrants will also be required to mail hard copies of the book, in envelopes with heading The Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize to judges’ and staff addresses, which will be made available
Opening date for this stage of submissions will be August 1st, 2026
Closing date for electronic submissions will be September 14th 2026
At present, the Long List will be announced at the end of January, 2027
Short List will be announced at the end of February 2027
Winner(s) event will be at the end of March 2027. Dates subject to change.
If you’re longlisted you’ll need to provide up to 10 additional hard copies to Queen Mary University of London, for use of their students, and to help us raise money and awareness of the Prize
If you’re shortlisted you’ll need to provide up to 10 additional hard copies to Queen Mary University of London, for use of their students, and to help us raise money and awareness of the Prize
Prize Money and other Awards
The amount of prize money is subject to money raised between now and the announcement of the long list. All money awarded by the Prize must be used to commission or produce work of high literary merit.
The longlisted presses will split half of the prize pot between them, with all money going to the presses. The shortlisted presses will split the remaining half of the prize pot - of which the presses must award 30% of their allocation to writer or writer/translator.
This year the overall prize-winning author or translator (whomever is a UK-resident) will receive a five-day writer’s residency at the Hawkwood Centre for Future Thinking in the Cotswolds.
To download the submission form please click here. Follow the instructions and return the form and all requested documents to the Prize Administrator email address included on the form.