Edge & Busby Press
Hi, folks. Walt here. Since this is the first article in an ongoing series, I thought it might make sense to do an intro before we jump straight into things.
What’s This?
Spec-Fic Small Press Rundown will be an ongoing series of articles focused on, you guessed it, small presses that specialize in speculative fiction (primarily fantasy, sci-fi, and horror). The idea is to give authors more than just a 30,000-foot overview so they can find the right press for them and support the small presses doing such amazing work.
How Often?
Yeah, no idea. I’ve got several in the works, but things are busy (aren’t they always?). I’ll try not to overload readers while still keeping some sort of consistency.
Know a Press?
If you know (or run) a small press that focuses on spec-fic, get in touch! Shoot me a DM, and I’ll add them to the list.
The first in our series is Edge & Busby Press. They’re a relatively new small press and focus mostly on different aspects of horror, but they’re growing fast and have several imprints now.
- Founded: 2026
- Founders: Andy Edge & Catherine Busby
- Website: EdgeandBusby.com
- Substack: Edge & Busby Press
- Publishes: Literary horror, horror romance, supernatural horror
- Formats: Novels, novellas, short story collections, anthologies
- Open to Submissions: Yes, check submission requirements here.
- Imprints: Edge & Busby (primary), Honeythief Books (supernatural/paranormal/folk horror), Sweetrot Books (horror romance), One Shots (what doesn’t fit in the other categories).
- Contact: Submissions here, other communications: hello@edgeandbusby.com.
- Contests and Anthologies: Several per year. Get more information about their current offerings on their Submissions page.
- ARCs: Yes, ARCs are available in exchange for honest reviews. Check here for details.
With all that out of the way, let’s let the press speak for itself. Andy Edge was kind enough to answer my questions in a lot of depth. Read this, take it to heart, and use it to inform your submission strategy, authors.
About the Press
Finish the sentence: this press exists because ______. What did you feel was missing, and were you right?
This press exists because we love books, we love telling stories, we love words, and we know exactly what it’s like to try and get your novel or your stories published. We want to help other writers reach that moment. We don’t feel anything is missing, really — we just want to make it possible for as many writers as we can. Are we right? The inbox has been full since the day we opened, so I think so.
How many books do you put out in a year, and how many people does it take to do it?
We’re starting out with six to ten titles next year across our imprints, including a couple of anthologies, and we’re hoping to grow from there. It takes two founders — me in Arizona and Catherine in the UK — plus our cover artist and freelance help with copyediting and typesetting when we need it. Every book gets read, edited, and championed by the people whose names are on the door.
Where do you sit in the genre? Any additional imprints for works that are solid but might fall into a different area?
Edge & Busby proper is literary horror — slow-burn, character-first, psychological, the human kind of monster. Honeythief Books exists because we get so many supernatural submissions, along with folk, gothic, and fabulist work, that we knew we needed a home for those amazing stories. Sweetrot Books is our horror romance imprint, and since one of us is a huge romance reader, that’s an easy call. One Shots is for the novels we fall in love with that don’t fit the other three, because if it’s a great story, we don’t want to be held back by imprint lanes. At the end of the day we just want to publish great stories. We do have plans for more imprints in the future — possibly YA, possibly poetry. The sky’s the limit.
Where do you stand on different lengths/formats, like novellas, collections, and anthologies?
We publish novellas, novels, and short story collections, plus our own anthologies, so length varies a lot. We care far more about the story than the word count. A tight novella beats a padded novel every time.
What Are You Seeking?
Describe the book you’d sign tomorrow if it landed in the inbox this afternoon. (Asking more about what you’re not seeing enough of rather than for a comp title.)
Something that unsettles us without ever raising its voice. A book with a very specific sense of place and characters who feel like people we’ve met. And we want dread that builds so gradually we don’t notice we’re holding our breath until page two hundred. We’re not seeing enough patience — writers willing to let a scene sit in the discomfort instead of cutting away to relieve it. We’d also love something with genuine warmth in it, where the horror lands harder because we actually care about these people first. Make us love them, then make us worry.
What do you get so much of that you’ve stopped being able to say yes, no matter how well it’s done?
Cosmic horror. We get a lot of it, a lot of it is good, and right now it doesn’t fit any of our imprints — which is exactly why a cosmic horror imprint is on the discussion table. Splatterpunk is the other one we’re talking about: I love it, Catherine cringes at it, and that argument is ongoing. So if you write either, watch this space.
What’s the fastest way for a submission to make you stop reading the query letter, and in the first five pages?
In the query letter, it’s clear very quickly if you’ve actually read the requirements. If you haven’t taken the time to read them, why would we take the time to read your submission? In the first five pages, we want you to connect us with your characters immediately. Stop telling us what to feel. We see so much of “he was scared,” “she felt terrified,” “a wave of dread washed over him.” We don’t want to be told the character is afraid — we want to be afraid with them. Put us in the body, in the room, in the specific detail that makes the fear real, and let us get there ourselves. A writer who trusts the reader to feel it wins us over in a paragraph.
How Do Submissions Work?
Walk a writer through what happens after they submit. Who reads it first, how many passes does it take to get to yes, how long before they hear anything, and what does a “no” from you look like?
I [Andy] read it first, and the ones I like or that I think Catherine will like get passed to Catherine, where they get a second chance to wow us. After we’ve both read, we meet several times a week to discuss the work, debate it, and occasionally fight about it — though so far we’ve only really argued over two stories. Most of the time we agree, which makes it easy. But if one of us loves something, we will go to bat for it. Right now we’re promising to get back on manuscripts within three months, and probably sooner if we can — we don’t want to hold on to something if it isn’t a good fit. A no from us is polite, prompt, and clean. We’ve asked for revise-and-resubmits from some authors and given notes to others. Our main goal is to reply to every single submission, no matter what, so no one is left wondering and hearing nothing.
Answer the four things writers are nervous about asking directly: simultaneous submissions, unagented work, reprints, and AI-generated or AI-assisted text. Where do you stand on each?
Simultaneous submissions: yes, always — just let us know if it’s taken elsewhere.
Unagented work: nearly everything we sign is unagented, and we treat agented and unagented queries exactly the same.
Reprints: welcome for our anthologies as long as you hold the rights, and the same goes for short story collections. Novels need to be unpublished, though we’ll consider self-published novels if you still hold all the rights.
AI: we’re looking for human-written dread. And we don’t run submissions through AI checkers — feeding work into an AI to check for AI makes no sense to us. But here’s what it comes down to: if someone is using AI, that’s on them. I don’t have the time to check, I don’t know how to check, and the guessing game of “is this AI or not” has gotten out of control. Our policy is stated on our website, and if a writer deceives us, at the end of the day that’s on their conscience, not ours. What we promise our authors is what matters to us: we will not use anyone’s work to train generative AI systems, we will not create or authorize an AI-generated adaptation, translation, or narration of anyone’s work, and we will not grant any third party the right to do so either. We’re doing the best we can in these early days of AI.
Without naming any figure you’d rather not publish, describe what your standard contract looks like: which rights you take and for how long, whether there’s an advance, how royalties are calculated, reported and paid, and how an author gets their rights back, including if the press ever winds down.
We’re author-focused, and we work hard to make sure our contract is to the author’s advantage. We pay an advance on every book we acquire, plus substantive royalties. Terms are negotiated per book based on length, format, and so on. Authors keep their copyright; we license rights for a fixed term. If the press should ever wind down — which we don’t think is going to happen for a very long time — authors get their rights back immediately. Beyond that, every contract is a conversation, and we’re happy to have it.
How much say does an author get over things (cover, final title, etc.) and where do you draw the line?
A lot. And again, we’re author-focused. We want our authors to fall in love with their covers and their titles. We retain final say, but who wants to sell a book the author hates the cover of? I sure don’t. Covers are built with the author and our artist together until everyone’s happy. Titles are a collaboration — two of our upcoming books are changing titles since being announced, with the authors cheering them on. As for where we draw the line, we haven’t reached that point yet. If we do, I’ll let you know. Ha.
What does your editorial process consist of, start to finish, and how long does it last on average from signed contract to finished book?
We’re doing the whole shebang: developmental edit first, then line edit, copyedit, and proofreading. It works well for us because we have very different strengths. I’m all about the flow. I see the big picture — I can zero in on a character who’s slacking and come up with five ways to bring them in line with the rest of the cast before you’ve finished your morning coffee. Catherine, on the other side, will spit out every word you use that has ten better words waiting in line, find every comma you misplaced, and throw it back at you. Between the two of us, we’re hoping to help our authors turn their book into a story everyone will absolutely enjoy reading. Contract to finished book runs nine to eighteen months, give or take.
What’s Life Like for One of Your Authors?
Split the work of selling the book. Specifically, what does the press do for every title, and what is the author expected to do?
The press does the cover, editing, typesetting, metadata, and distribution so the book is orderable at any bookstore; review-copy campaigns through NetGalley and our own reader team; blurb outreach; bookstore and library outreach; podcast pitching; cover reveal; preorder setup; and social graphics. The author’s job is to show up: say yes to interviews and podcasts, tell their own network, do the local bookstore event, and spread the word as much as they can stand to. But we do it with them. We’re not publishing the book and saying “have a great day.” We want to be in the trenches with every author.
Who is this press wrong for? Describe the writer who’d be happier somewhere else.
I hate to say it’s wrong for anyone — I think most writers could fit with us one way or another. But we are very hands-on. If you don’t like editing, if you don’t enjoy discussion and collaboration, if you’d rather hand off a manuscript and hear from us when the book’s in a box, we’re probably not the right fit. We want someone who wants to work with us.
How many of your authors know each other? What’s the inter-author camaraderie like?
We’re new enough that it’s just getting started. Building that community is something we really want to do as we acquire more writers — we’d love our authors to know each other, read each other, and show up for each other’s launches.
Last Call
What’s the one thing you wish more writers understood about small-press publishing?
That we’re doing all the same work the big publishers do, with a lot fewer people and a lot less money. There’s an enormous amount that happens behind the scenes to publish a book — and to publish it well — and we’re working our asses off because we’re passionate about it, and because we want an author to walk into a bookstore and see their book on the shelf. That moment is why the whole thing exists.
Think you’ve got something that’s a great fit for Edge & Busby or one of their imprints? They’re actively seeking new work, so hit the website, but make sure to read their submission requirements before sending anything in.
Make sure to subscribe to the Speakeasy to get the full spec-fic small press series in your inbox and if you know of or run a small press that focuses on horror, sci-fi, or fantasy, let us know!
Leave a Reply