Leaf by Leaf is our newest imprint and an adventure in hybrid publishing from Cinnamon Press. The aim of Leaf by Leaf is to support our publishing programme with a small number of select books that allow authors to pay a contribution for services such as editing, design and distribution. It’s a model that several indie presses are doing well, providing value without charging ridiculous amounts and enabling more authors to find a platform without resorting to low quality services.
We want to ensure we can go on publishing our core list whatever the future brings and we can help to do that by also helping more authors into print.
The imprint is a collaborative venture with Rowan Tree Editing, run by Rowan Fortune, who also mentors students for us and worked as a Cinnamon editor for many years.
Leaf by Leaf has helped over 70 authors see their dream projects into print, with more currently in production— poetry collections, memoir, novels, short stories, mixed genre and non-fiction works. (Please note we don’t take play scripts or children’s books).
We have rolling submissions rounds so send when you are ready.
The current submission round closes on November 18 2026 and will be for books to be published in late summer to autumn 2027. We read as manuscripts arrive in so if we love a manuscript will get back to you as soon as two of our editors have read it.
You’ll find a submissions form below.
You’ll also find lots of information below about how we work, but if you have any questions, email Rowan and we’ll get back to you.
Leaf by Leaf is for authors thinking of self-publishing but who would like more and want professional disribution and high quality print. You will get:
- quality copy and proof editing, layout, design and distribution
- a marketing guides
- options for ebooks and full creative editing
- a transparent contract
- a clear and fair fee structure
Your book can by a poetry collection, a collection of short stories, a novella, novel or nonfiction work such as memoir, essays, philosophy etc. (Please note books over 100,000 words incur a small extra cost.) We are open to all genres in these styles but please note we don't publish play scripts or children's books.
We generally only take books with black and white written interiors. If you have a project with illustrations (black and white or colour) please send a separate query. We do very few of these projects so we need to look at schedules and individual costing.
You must hold the copyright for the material none of which should be quoted from copyright sources without written permissions. This means that if the author and/or translator was alive in the last 70 years you will need a permission to quote. Sadly, there is no such thing as 'fair dealing' in UK copyright law for creative writing.
We are now open for a new round until November 18 2026.
You are welcome to submit books at any time up to the closing date and we'll get back to as we read manuscripts and within two months of the closing date at the latest.
You will find the submission form below. There is no reading fee.
Sadly, we only have capacity for a small number of projects in each round. We will have future reading periods, so there are opportunities to submit again.
For books submitted by November 18, 2026, we will email back to all who sent submissions by mid-late January 2027.
If you do not hear back from us by these dates please check your spam filter and if you don't find an email get in touch to check that an email hasn't gone astray.
Our Leaf by Leaf books will go into the distribution chain so they will be available on Amazon and other major websites and in any shop to order. You benefit from the already set up distribution channels of a 19+ year old press. But you should also remember that this is a hybrid model so the other main seller will be you. Authors are increasingly the main sellers even within many larger presses so it's always good to think about ways you can promote your book and make direct sales. You might want to set up a simple author website through Wordpress or another platform as well as organising readings, for instance.
We will also send you a full marketing guide and promote your book on our website, through our newsletters and via our book reps.
This is a collaborative work so unlike the traditional figure of 10% royalty, our Leaf by Leaf books will accrue a 50% royalty rate.
We will keep a full record of your sales through our distributors and update you each March before the end of the tax year when there are funds owing. To make the payments as simple as possible we offer a £500 advance on royalties applied against the costs of the service. This cuts down admin costs and time for us and reduces upfront costs for you.
We generally plan for around ten - twelve months turnaround time to ensure everything is done to a high standard and to meet with the long lead-in times of the book trade. This can sometimes be a little less for poetry.
You can find a full table of costs here.
Please note, Leaf by Leaf offers a full service of editing, proof reading, layout design, cover design and distribution and we are not able to offer only parts of the service.
We're not able to offer this facility as we pay colleagues up front for their work. This means that payment is due on signature of contract. However, we don't ask for payment for the print run until we're ready to put in the order with the printer so you'll have more time to budget for this.
Yes. You will have a contract detailing all the work to be undertaken, your contribution and how royalties work.
Simply use the application form, which you will find below during submission periods, to send us the complete manuscript of the book you would like to work on with us and a synopsis of the book (including the word count of the full manuscript/number of poems).
Please note, the documents must be PDFs -- for the security of the website no other file types can be accepted.
Leaf by Leaf submission