CELEBRATING 20 YEARS IN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING

Schaffner Press, Inc. was founded in 2001, and is independently owned and managed by former literary agent (Schaffner Agency) Timothy Schaffner. Over the last decade and a half, the press has published over fifty titles of literary fiction, non-fiction and poetry that deal with themes of universal social concern and social change, such as health, the environment, issues of race, war, and other humanitarian issues.  In recent years, Schaffner Press has expanded its scope to include books in translation from the French and Spanish languages, and hopes to include voices from other parts of the world as well in the near future.

We publish between 6-8 books a year, and maintain a strong backlist of over 80 titles in print. We usually require a long lead time in which to publish an original title, so time-sensitive books, such as tie-ins to a movie release, historical event or anniversary, should be submitted well ahead of time.

Schaffner Press is distributed by Baker & Taylor Publisher Services/BTPS, who have been in business for over 190 years.

For submissions of works of fiction and non-fiction, please send a query to either Tim Schaffner (tim@schaffnerpress.com) or Sean Murphy (sean@schaffnerpress.com). While both of us share similar interests, please query Tim for non-fiction, journalistic, social activism, environmental, health/mental health, biography, history, current events, and personal memoir. Sean would be the one for mystery, humor, literary and short fiction, first fiction, true crime and pop culture (esp. music and entertainment, film and film noir studies). Both Tim and Sean are looking for titles that will expound upon our original mission statement to publish “books of social relevance and universal concern.”

Please note that we are not taking submissions in children’s or young adult categories, poetry collections, self-help, fitness, craft and diy how-to titles, political or religious screeds, erotica, and science fiction/fantasy.