Seeking Nonfiction Authors!
Road Trip Press is setting out on a particular mission:
To find and devote everything we’ve got to publishing one. single. book.
We’re looking for research-based nonfiction.
We’re looking for you to teach us something.
We’re looking for you to take us on an adventure with you.
*First formats will be (a) traditional offset paperbook, published for sale, and (b) ePub edition, published for free download.
We’re launching Road Trip Press to publish a book, so we can document the editorial process in real time. Read more about us here!
*We are currently closed for submissions as we review our first-round projects. If we re-open submissions, we’ll reactivate the link above. In the meantime, please follow our progress on Instagram, Spotify, and our blog.
Manuscript Requirements
- Projected to be 65-70K words
- Manuscript need NOT be complete upon submission. We need to see 2 sample chapters, or about 8-10K words, attached to your proposal.
- You should expect to submit a first complete draft by ~May 2024.
- Nonfiction, artfully rendered
- You might consider your work scholarly, literary, creative, or straightforward–we’re open, so long as you’re showing attention to both content and craft.
- Single-author strongly preferred
- Co-authors considered.
- Research-based
- You the author should have gone out and investigated the material, and the manuscript should include documentation/notes for both fact-checkers and typesetters.
- No full memoirs
- The manuscript should have a primary subject beyond the author, though the author may be present in the narrative. That is to say, a personal thread is perfectly appealing, so long as the thread connects to “larger stuff.”
- Bonus points if you also have:
- regional ties to central Virginia
- reasonably avant garde features in the manuscript (basically, features in the book that would make production a little more fun, but still manageable)
Published Books We Love
What do we love about these? All these authors use compelling storytelling and strong, appealing voices to tell us about adventures–some wild, some calm–and draw on a wide range of tools to gather their information. We get to see their subjects in living color, to go along on sensory-rich investigations, and to come out more replete people at the end.
In terms of production, too, these books all follow fairly traditional formats, while offering opportunities to surprise readers with “bonus” material beyond their already marvelous sentences.
Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale and How a 19th-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry
by Scott Huler
[A] wonderfully written account of one man’s crusade to learn about what the wind is made of by tracing the history of the Beaufort Scale and its eccentric creator, Sir Francis Beaufort. It’s as much about the language we use to describe our world as it is an exhortation to observe it more closely.
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
by Christopher McDougall
The astonishing and hugely entertaining story that completely changed the way we run. An epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt?
“Equal parts quest, physiology treatise, and running history . . . . The climactic race reads like a sprint . . . . It simply makes you want to run.” —Outside Magazine
Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate–Discoveries from a Secret World
by Peter Wohlleben
Are trees social beings? In The Hidden Life of Trees forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers. Wohlleben also shares his deep love of woods and forests, explaining the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in his woodland.
After learning about the complex life of trees, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
by Casey Cep
This “superbly written true-crime story” (The New York Times Book Review) masterfully brings together the tales of a serial killer in 1970s Alabama and of Harper Lee, the beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird, who tried to write his story.
Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members, but with the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative assassinated him at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend himself. Sitting in the audience during the vigilante’s trial was Harper Lee, who spent a year in town reporting on the Maxwell case and many more trying to finish the book she called The Reverend.
Field Notes on Science and Nature
edited by Michael Canfield
Once in a great while, as the New York Times noted recently, a naturalist writes a book that changes the way people look at the living world. John James Audubon’s Birds of America, published in 1838, was one. Roger Tory Peterson’s 1934 Field Guide to the Birds was another. How does such insight into nature develop?
Field Notes on Science and Nature allows readers to peer over the shoulders and into the notebooks of a dozen eminent field workers, to study firsthand their observational methods, materials, and fleeting impressions. Recording observations in the field is an indispensable scientific skill, but researchers are not generally willing to share their personal records with others. Here, for the first time, are reproductions of actual pages from notebooks. And in essays abounding with fascinating anecdotes, the authors reflect on the contexts in which the notes were taken.