What we’re looking for

We’re not a place for summaries, reviews, or elevator pitches. We want the lines, scenes, or exchanges that hooked you lifted directly off the page.

• Excerpts should be no more than 75 words, quoted accurately from the published work. You can trim filler words for length, as long as it doesn’t change the meaning or alter the author’s actual language.

• No paraphrasing, rewriting, or punching up dialogue to make it hit harder. If it’s not word-for-word (minus trimmed filler), it’s not eligible.

• We don’t run submitted excerpts through AI. No AI editing, no AI generation, or AI training will happen on your text.

• Submissions must come from an published (or soon-to-be-published) work. No AI-generated or fabricated excerpts are accepted.

• No covers, no blurbs. The whole purpose of Something Novel This Way is that readers judge a book on its words alone.

Spotlight submissions are the one exception to the length cap. You can submit a screenshot of the scene instead of typed text, which allows for more words than the standard cap.

Submission limits

Margins (free): You can submit up to 5 hooks per book. Each hook should be a different moment/scene. No need to fill all 5 if you don’t have that many favorites.

Spotlights (paid): Each Spotlight submission is limited to 2 hooks per book.

Rights & permissions

• You must hold or have been granted the rights to share the excerpt you submit as the author, or with permission to quote.

• If you submit images for us to use, they must come from stock sites (two of our free favorites are Pexels and Dupe), or be your own property/licensed image. Unlicensed images from elsewhere like Pinterest is prohibited.

Buy Links

• Buy/Read links on this site may be affiliate links, meaning we may earn a small commission if you purchase through them at no extra cost to you. This never affects which excerpts are approved or featured.

Content rating

• We celebrate the full range of romance here whether you write no-spice, steamy, or full blown erotica. However, we can’t host sexually explicit content, due to our hosting platform’s policies. Please keep submissions suggestive rather than graphic.

• We also don’t accept content that includes hate speech, glorifies violence or self-harm, or targets real people.

• Submissions with prohibited content will be declined or, if already paid and published, removed with a full refund.

Tags

• Trope and mood tags should reflect your excerpt/book. Please don’t tag for visibility if the tag doesn’t actually fit. It undermines the point of browsing by tag.

What happens after you submit

• We review every submission. Most are approved as-is. If something isn’t quite right (the hook doesn’t fully land, the excerpt could be tightened, etc.), we’ll email you with suggestions so you can revise and resubmit. Outright rejection is reserved for content that violates our guidelines.

• Approved submissions go live within 5 business days.

Updating a submission

• Want to change something after you’ve submitted? Send us a message through our contact form. Include what post it is (link to it preferred) and what you would like to update. If it’s new images, we’ll email you to get those files.

Paid submissions (Spotlights)

• Payment covers production and placement, not a guaranteed outcome. We can’t promise views, shares, or sales.

• If your submission is approved, it’ll be live within 5 business days.

• If prohibited content is found after payment, you’ll receive a full refund.

Questions or disputes

If you have a question or dispute, email us at [email protected], we’re happy to talk it through.