Thank you for your interest in writing for Five Simple Steps. We are always keen to hear from authors and look forward to reading any book proposals we are sent. Before you take the time to submit your ideas, please read the information below to make sure we can make the best start.

What is Five Simple Steps?

Five Simple Steps is a publisher of books for web professionals. We generally follow a simple format, one that has become familiar to our readership: Our books usually have five sections and each section has five chapters, allowing for well-structured content and eclectic topics within each book, these range between 60,000-100,000 words. These are the Practical Guide books. Occasionally, we'll publish important individual titles that don't (or won't or can't) fit the mould of a Practical Guide, like Hardboiled Web Design and The Icon Handbook. We also print Pocket Guides, which are short, timely practical books which show the users how to do one thing well. Pocket Guides are split into five chapters and are typically between 7000-10,000 words. 

An important part of our brand is design and style. We pride ourselves on producing beautiful books that have an informal and conversational tone of voice that makes them pleasant to read and useful tools for the reader.

Does it have to be a book about design?

Not necessarily, but it does have to be related to the web. That said, we're not a technical publisher; there are already plenty of them. There are so many unexplored little crevices of the web that this still means we can publish on a vast range of topics. So far, most of our book titles are Practical Guides, but that doesn't mean yours has to be a practical guide to anything. We would encourage you, though, to follow the five sections and five chapters format outlined above, at least at first.

How do I submit my idea and get the ball rolling?

Please use the checklist below to submit a simple document telling us about yourself and the book you want to write. We will get back to you as soon as we can with our thoughts.

About you

  • Full name and contact information (must include an email address)
  • A short biography
  • Any relevant URLs to your past or present work or portfolio
  • List of previous books written (if applicable)
  • Reasons why you want to write this book and reasons why you want us to publish it

About your book

  • Proposed title
  • Summarise your book in a few sentences (what we can very technically call the blurb)
  • A more detailed outline (including any section and chapter headings if known)
  • If available, please send a sample chapter with your proposal, or some examples of your previous writing work so we can get a sense of your style

Please also provide some information on: why you think this is an important book; what other books have been written in this field; what makes yours different (and better!); who the audience is for this book; and what are the main selling points of your book?

Any other information

Please let us know of anything else that you feel is relevant to this book.

Proposals can be emailed to: amie@fivesimplesteps.com or sent by post to:

Postal address: 119 St. Mary Street, Cardiff, United Kingdom, CF10 1DY