At All Hands Publishing, we want our books to be well-written, well-made, and well-read. In order to make sure we never lose this true north, we have written this content policy to help explain what we think makes a good book and how we evaluate content quality, message, and impact as a company.
What kinds of books do we publish?
We have experience publishing a wide range of books, and our business model is flexible enough to support most categories and genres, including literary and genre fiction, creative and expository nonfiction, anthologies and collections, and even specialty books like graphic novels and cookbooks.
But more than category, we are interested in themes, motivations, and connection points. We love stories that challenge preconceived notions, forge new communities, and build radical worlds full of empathy and creativity. We love working with aspiring authors with massive TBR lists, unique hobbies, and embarrassingly niche subreddit feeds. We crave weird, passionate, cringey ideas that fall outside traditional definitions of genre.
The only requirements are a unique perspective, a willingness to collaborate, and a dedication to intentional relationship-building with your future readers.
Just in case you’re wondering, we don’t like working on what we call “10x books.” These are the generic business, technology, or self-help books whose sole purpose is to act as lead generation for an individual or company. Readers are not future clients, and books are not business cards.
Do you need full manuscripts to work with us?
We pride ourselves on our ability to customize our process to every aspiring author we work with, no matter what form their work-in-progress takes. This means we will consider working with any type of writer, including:
The Dreamer: You have a great idea and lots of notes but haven’t gotten past the “Chapter One” title in an otherwise blank Word document
The Alchemist: You have been writing sporadically and disjointedly for years and probably have enough for a book, but don’t know how to turn all your content into one
The Wanderer: You have written half a manuscript but can’t seem to find your way out of the neverending middle of your draft
The Wayfinder: You have a full first draft and even got positive feedback from friends or family, but aren’t sure what it needs to get it to publication
The Necromancer: You have a self-published book from years ago that never got traction, and you’d like to update it and find a better way to reach readers
Don’t let the state (nor non-state) of your work-in-progress stop you from introducing yourself. Let us know what kind of writer you are and what kind of help you need by reaching out through our Contact Us page.
What kinds of books won’t we publish?
There is nothing better than finishing a book and feeling changed on a metaphysical level. Good books have the capacity to challenge, transform, shock, and even disturb their readers. We celebrate this kind of self-expression and self-examination.
However, there is some content we will not help to create or publish:
- Content that targets an individual or group on the basis of immutable characteristics or chosen identities. This includes but is not limited to direct or indirect threats of violence or harm, hate speech or symbols, demeaning or derogatory language, or calls for discrimination.
- Content that encourages or glorifies behavior that endangers oneself or others. This includes but is not limited to the promotion or perpetuation of harassment, bullying, or other violent or abusive behaviors toward another person.
- Content that willfully perpetuates false, deceptive, or misleading information represented as true fact. This includes but is not limited to conspiracy theories, impersonation, and unsubstantiated scientific or medical claims.
- Content that we know or suspect contains illegal disclosure. This includes defamation, breach of confidentiality or privacy, or violation of nondisclosure agreements.
- Content that we know or suspect contains others’ work without proper consent. This includes copyright infringement, plagiarism, misuse of third-party intellectual property, or generative AI (see our generative AI policy below).
The bottom line is that if you ask us to help you create or publish content that endangers people, we will gently but firmly show you the door.
We also think it is important to be clear that we see a big difference between content that is dangerous or unethical and content about dangerous or unethical things. The former is harmful; the latter is just good storytelling.
What is our generative AI policy?
Our mission is to connect the authors who want to be read by humans and readers who want their books to be written by humans. Generative AI has no place in that mission, and therefore is not invited to participate in All Hands projects.
This means that authors, All Hands Crew, and freelance contractors will be expected to be creative all on their own. We understand (and indeed expect) that this means moving at human speed and making human mistakes, with all the occasional inconvenience that inevitably entails.
That said, we will not be “checking your work” if we see one too many em dashes (not least because we have not ceded the em dash to the opposition). We want to cultivate trust and transparency, and in our experience, the practice of “AI-sleuthing” only creates an atmosphere of paranoia and anxiety. If we have a question, we’ll ask it kindly and expect the same in return.
Use of assistive AI, like captioning in video calls, calendar management, or other administrative tasks to help with executive functioning or other accessibility needs, is welcome (especially since most of it isn’t actually AI anyway).
