About the press. John Daniel and Company is a small press publisher of belles lettres. We publish only four titles a year, with print runs averaging 1000-2000. Our books are distributed to the trade by various book wholesalers, including Bookpeople, Bookazine, Ingram Book Company, and Baker and Taylor. In addition to trade sales, we rely heavily on direct-mail sales from our yearly catalog and from announcements we send out for each book we publish. Editorial focus. "Belles lettres" is a fuzzy term that allows us a lot of leeway, but it does exclude children's books, genre fiction, cookbooks, photography books, how-to books, and a number of other categories that are better published by the major-league publishing establishment. "Belles lettres," for us, means stylish and elegant writing; beyond that definition I should mention that we are particularly interested in essays, literary memoirs, and short fiction dealing with social issues. We publish at most one poetry title a year. For economic reasons almost all our books are under 200 pages long. Royalties. We pay very small advances, and our royalties are based on 10 percent of the net receipts (cover price minus discount allowed to the customer). Submission requirements. For novels, non-fiction, or short story collections, please send a synopsis or outline and no more than 50 sample pages. When submitting a poetry collection, please send 12-15 sample poems. Enclose SASE; manuscripts received without SASE will be discarded. Allow 6-12 weeks for response. Manuscripts must be typed, double-spaced, clean, and readable. Snail-mail only; we do not accept submissions in the form of disks, e-mail, fax or phone calls. Send your submission to: John Daniel John Daniel & Company PO Box 2790 McKinleyville, CA 95519 Some free advice. We receive over five thousand unsolicited manuscripts and query letters a year. We publish four manuscripts a year, of which fewer than half were received unsolicited. Obviously the odds are not with you. For this reason we encourage you to send out multiple submissions and we do not expect you to tie up your chances while waiting for our response.