Press
Amanuensis Press publishes novellas and short novels made by a writer and an AI agent working together. We are looking for good books that could not have existed without that collaboration, and we want to see what a book looks like when the agent is part of how it was made rather than hidden behind it. The books are the experiment.
We are small and intend to stay so. One or two titles a year: books from the prize, occasional titles by the editors on the same terms and never judged against the prize, and books we find along the way. Every one of them is made with an agent and published openly as such.
Each book is published as an ebook and a paperback, printed to order and distributed worldwide through Ingram. The author keeps copyright and subsidiary rights.
A $1,000 honorarium and publication for one work of fiction made by a writer and an agent. Novellas and short novels, 10,000 to 40,000 words. Deadline 31 December 2026.
Questions: ama@amanuensis.press
Press
Amanuensis Press publishes novellas and short novels made by a writer and an AI agent working together. We are looking for good books that could not have existed without that collaboration, and we want to see what a book looks like when the agent is part of how it was made rather than hidden behind it. The books are the experiment.
$1,000 honorarium and publication
For one work of fiction made by a writer and an agent.
We are not asking whether an agent was used. We are asking what the collaboration made possible.
Could this book have existed without it?
That might mean a writer working with an agent line by line, a story grown through a long exchange, a formal experiment built on the agent's own language, or a method we have not seen before.
An agent can be a tool. We are interested in what happens when it becomes something more complicated than one.
We do not have a house style. We do not know what the next generation of this work will look like. That is the point.
Another press wants your biography. We want to know what happened between you, the book and the agent.
Tell us about the method in a statement of 300 to 800 words, uploaded with the manuscript. What did the agent do? What did you do? Where did you disagree? What did the process let you make that you could not, or would not, have made alone?
We will read that account with the manuscript. The process is part of the work.
One manuscript per entrant. Manuscripts are read and scored first, blind: no name anywhere in the file. Method statements are opened after, cover letters last. The cover letter is where you tell us who you are.
Reading fee: $30
Deadline: 31 December 2026
Format: Markdown or DOCX preferred; PDF accepted. 12-point serif, double-spaced, page numbers. Title on the first page.
Length: 10,000–40,000 words.
Eligibility: Unpublished as a whole; individual parts may have appeared in magazines. Simultaneous submissions are fine; withdraw if the manuscript is taken elsewhere.
The honorarium is paid regardless of how many manuscripts are entered. Fees fund the platform and the honorarium; anything left over funds a second title from the call, which we may publish and do not promise to. The editors read and judge; the press's own titles are never entered. Every entrant will hear from us within sixty days of the deadline.
Entrants keep all rights to work that is not selected. Manuscripts and method statements are kept for the reading period and deleted after it; nothing in them is retained, trained on or reused.
Submissions are handled through Submittable. If you cannot use it, email ama@amanuensis.press and we will take the entry by hand on the same terms.
The books we publish will be available as ebooks and paperbacks, printed to order and distributed worldwide through Ingram. Authors retain copyright and subsidiary rights.
Authors receive royalties of 50 percent of net receipts on ebooks and 15 percent on print, paid twice a year, and ten copies of their book. Net receipts are what the press is paid for a copy after the retailer's share and the cost of printing it. The initial publishing term is five years, after which rights return to the author.
We are interested in the books, not ownership for its own sake. The author remains the copyright holder.
Amanuensis Press is deliberately small. We intend to publish one or two titles a year: books from this prize, occasional titles by the editors on the same terms and never judged against the prize, and books we discover along the way.
Every book we publish will be made with an agent, and published openly as such.
We want to make a small, serious shelf of books that could not have existed any other way.
Questions: ama@amanuensis.press
Press
20 September 2026
The Amanuensis Prize is open for novellas and short novels made by a writer and an AI agent working together: a $1,000 honorarium and publication, reading fee $30, deadline 31 December 2026, manuscripts read blind. The terms and the form are on the prize page. Every entrant will hear from us within sixty days of the deadline.