Looking Out For Creators

Insomnia Publications are inviting submsissions.

Hi everyone this is Nic Wilkinson.

I am very pleased to announce that, as of a few days ago, I have recently accepted the role of Creative Director for Insomnia Publicationsm having been involved with the company as an artist and letterer for about 18 months.

Insomnia are currently inviting submissions from both writers and artists (pencillers, colourists, inkers and letterers). We are looking for both complete "graphic novels" or "albums" of between 80 - 200 pages or short stories for our anthologies of between 4-10 pages.

I know inviting submissions like this is a bit unusual in the industry - but as we receive great scripts from writers who do not personally know artists, and great samples from artists who do not know any writers to work with - why would we not introduce you and build creative teams instead of hoping you meet by chance some time?

The books we have in progress at the moment cover a wide variety of subject matter, and we look for originality and quality rather than concentrating on any specific genre. We would rather have something unusual, challenging, inventive, creative, inspired, literate, thought provoking (you get the idea) than another version of something that is already out there. You can get mainstream works from many places, that is why they are called mainstream and there are lots of publishers who already do those kinds of books extremely well.

If you have been published before or have self published in print or online and can show us a portfolio, that is fantastic. However Insomnia is all about new writing, new art and new concepts and we certainly welcome submissions from new talent.


So, let us know:

For Writers

I need you to tell me:

About the story - proposed length, how much (if any) is complete, about the characters, the setting, What happens, Why it happens, – all of that not just a 10 word high concept "idiot pitch". That tells me if you are good at formulating snappy high-concept pitches, not what your scripting, structuring and storytelling are like - although the high concept pitch will be useful for marketing if your work is accepted.

I also need to know:

• Character profiles for the main characters
• Overall story synopsis (eg what happens for the whole story)
• Story structure (eg how the plot breaks down by "issue" or "chapter")
• Setting / Locations / Time period (important to know for finding artists - so any visual ideas you might have, although it doesn't matter if you prefer to leave all that to the artist)
• The story rationale (eg what it is really "about" that is the concepts you will be exploring rather than the "what happens" of the synopsis that tells us how you will dramatically execute the discussion of the concepts)

Samples are good if you have them but not required at the pitch stage

We do not care if you have the right script formatting software or fonts at this stage, we want your talent, not your technical know how.

If you want to get in touch first to ask if your idea sounds like the kind of thing we are looking for before you put the whole pitch package together you can contact me at:
nichola[at]insomniapublications.com
(remember to put the "h" in my name, it is the reason most emails don't reach me :)

For Artists (Pencils, inks, colours or all 3)

• We would like to see sequentials as well as pin ups (unless you want to be purely a cover artist - which is fine, but let us know that)
• What formats you work in - traditional media, digital etc
• Whether you work in Colour or black and white
• If you are submitting to be an inker or colourist then we need to see copies of the underlying pencils as well as your work.

Please don't send any one email with attachments larger than 7Mb or it will not come through.

Contact me at:
nichola[at]insomniapublications.com
(remember to put the "h" in my name, it is the reason most emails don't reach me :)

Finally one of the most important things for both writers and artists is to let us know the length of story to which you feel you can commit. We have an anthology title for people who want to do short stories through to complete graphic novel series of hundreds of pages. Also we appreciate that many creators are showing incredible dedication by working on their comics alongside day jobs and other commitments, but if we like your work enough to publish we will work with you to agree a schedule that suits all parties

Many of us at Insomnia are/were creators ourselves and we appreciate that making submissions can be difficult and nerve-wracking. We will look at everything we receive, and although it may take time we will respond to everyone. The important thing to remember that your work may be great, and we may even personally love to read it, but it sometimes will just not what we are looking for right now.

We are also interested to hear from games designers, animators, and model makers as we often need to call on such services.In most cases we will look to put our books out as albums or "instant trades" so that they can be sold in bookshops and online as well as through comic shops.
If you would like to see examples of Insomnia books to get a feel for the type of material we publish then you can see previews of two forthcoming Graphic Novels and a selection from our Anthology title online at MyeBook

Cancertown - by Cy Dethan and Stephen Downey
Cages - by Xander Bennett and Mel Cook
Layer Zero Anthology Selection


You can reach me at submissions[at]insomniapublications.com or nichola[at]insomniapublications.com

Hope to hear from you soon

Nic