Book manuscript proposals

Wood wide web stories accepts only book proposals in announced time slots (= submission windows).

Next submission window

Wood wide web stories is open for direct submissions from authors for a two-month period, beginning February 1, 2026 at 9am (Brussels time) and closing March 31st, 2027 at 11:59pm (Brussels time).

During this submission window, a submission link will be activated/active.

Mission and Values: Is Wood wide web stories a Fit for Your Work?

Wood wide web stories explore in-depth and relational and diverse perspectives and practices to (re)enchant disenchanted places and people. Across much of the Germanic and Western world, and increasingly far beyond it, many people have inherited landscapes stripped of story, ritual, reciprocity, and belonging. Forests became plantations. Rivers became resources. Life became optimized, accelerated, fragmented. Many of us feel this wound intimately: in our bodies, communities, and imaginations.

Wood Wide Web Stories with the question of how to sit with the woundedness of our times and how to slowly participate in the re-enchantment of life and landscape.

Wood Wide Web Stories is a living documentation of deep experimental learning, story-making, and nature connection. It is created for all who are interested in working with plants, fungi, animals, waters, places, and other more-than-human beings as companions and collaborators rather than as background scenery or resources.

Since April 2026, Wood wide web stories is a registered Belgian book publisher, mostly selling English books in the European market. You can explore our books in the book shop. Before you pitch your book proposal, please read one of the previously published books, join one of the online workshops (I prefer to collaborate with people I met before) and submit your proposal during the announced slots. The next slot will be in December 2027.

Types of Manuscripts We Are Currently Seeking

We are seeking for care(work)books, for hybrids of learning stories (creative nonfiction) and invitations with templates.

Manuscript proposals that receive consideration would typically be categorized as creative nonfiction. Besides the books in our portfolio, other good examples of this genre type with a focus on the natural world, scientific and traditional knowledges, and aspects of environmental philosophy, humanities, and ethics:

  • The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine by Sophie Strand
  • Elixir: A Journey to the Higher Realms by Kapka Kassabova
  • Let’s Become Fungal! Mycelium Teachings and the Arts by Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez
  • The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane
  • …

However, the books miss a part with invitations and templates that would turn the book into a care(work)book.

The first part (noncreative fiction) should be maximum 40.000 words. The second part (templates, invitations, white pages) has no word limit.

Is Your Manuscript Proposal ready?

Wood wide web stories will consider both …

  • an overall book proposal accompanied by three to four sample chapters;
  • or a proposal accompanied by a completed manuscript.

Editorial review will be done in both cases by Wendy Wuyts, and by particular outside experts, if the nature of the manuscript requires that. Please review the proposal submission guidelines below before submitting your proposal to Wood wide web stories.

Proposal Submission Guidelines

Please submit your Proposal as a Word file, with 2 centimeter margins, double-spaced text, using 12-point Garamond font. Number the pages of your proposal in the upper right-hand corner of the header.

  1. Pitch / Synopsis / Why this book? Why now? Start with a brief description of your book (1 page or less), including its proposed title. This is your overview of the work and its main argument. Show us what makes your work distinctive, groundbreaking, revelatory, necessary, or field-changing. The style of your prose should match the style you envision for the manuscript itself.
  2. Annotated Table of Contents : Include an annotated table of contents with brief descriptions of each chapter. In an introductory statement, mention the reason for the sequence of the chapters you have chosen and how they interact and flow together. Show us how the argument builds and what the manuscript does overall. It’s been said that a great table of contents reads like poetry, which we think is a valuable way of thinking about a table of contents.
  3. Three to Four Sample Chapters: This is your chance to demonstrate that you can successfully execute what you are proposing. Include three to four complete, well-written and well-researched chapters that will leave us hungry to read more. As noted above, if you have a completed draft of the whole book, you can submit that with your proposal.
  4. Photographs and illustrations: Do you have photographs from the place that you will foreground ? Do you work together with a photographer or illustrator? (We might also work with the same illustrator and graphic designer of the previous books, see shop)
  5. Author Biosketch (Qualifications): Provide a brief (1 page or less) biographical sketch. Where does this story and your interest in the general topic of your book come from? What makes you the best person to write this story, and what can you bring to it that other authors might not? Are you engaged in public speaking, writing, or other public-facing projects, and are these local, national, or global in scope? In addition to this narrative biosketch, space will also be offered for you to enclose a resumé or a CV when you submit your proposal.
  6. Competitive and Complimentary Analysis: We’d like to know which books you hope your book will travel with, either in a complementary or competitive manner. This will include a discussion of what existing books you see as comparable, especially those published within the last few years. If you’re writing something that is more scholarly in content, discuss other scholarly books; if you are writing for a general audience, focus on trade books.
  7. Audience/Marketing Plan: Give us your sense of which audiences will be most excited by your work and why. We encourage you to be realistic. Some books can indeed attract a broad range of readers, but most work is targeted toward particular fields and practitioners. Your marketing plan is one of the most essential components of your proposal. Make it concrete and realistic, and include as many concrete numbers as you can.
  8. Projected Length: Please include the expected length (in words, not pages) of the text, notes, and bibliography, if you plan to include one; the projected number of illustrations.
  9. Book project timeline: If you don’t already have a complete manuscript, please mention when you anticipate a full draft will be completed. (First draft and a draft ready for copy editing).

There is no required length for a proposal, but they typically fall in the range of 10–30 double-spaced pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

As Wood wide web stories is an emerging publisher, there are no FAQ yet. Please let us know if some things are unclear or if there are questions by submitting a contact form.