Submissions

We aim to connect our readers with leading science and welcome interest from potential authors.

Why publish with CSIRO Publishing?

• CSIRO Publishing is Australia’s leading scientific publisher. Through our publications we demonstrate the value of science and capture and share knowledge for future generations. Our books achieve impact, communicating science to our readers. They inform and provide insight for scientists, researchers, decision makers and general audiences.

• Through publishing with CSIRO Publishing, you will join leading creators across science and science communication from Australia and around the world. 
• You will gain access to an expert team of editors, sales and marketing professionals who will help you hone your ideas, develop your manuscript and see your work come to life.
• Our books program is dedicated to the communication of science: our children’s program ignites curiosity and fosters imagination, our adult non-fiction list highlights the wonders of our natural world and our professional and academic books capture outcomes of science for a better future.
• We operate as a not-for-profit, editorially independent business unit within the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Thank you for considering writing or editing a book with us. Publishing a book need not be a complicated or overly time-consuming process and we aim to offer an efficient and positive experience for our authors and editors.

If you are considering writing, the first step is to prepare a publishing proposal outlining your ideas.

• For Professional, Academic and general titles, please use the Project Proposal form to put forward your idea. Please do not submit entire manuscripts. A sample of no more than 30 pages, if available, is welcomed, though not required for us to be able to assess your proposal. The earlier in the writing process we receive your proposal, the better we can guide you so that your manuscript meets the needs of your readers; you do not need a complete manuscript prior to your proposal submission.
• For Children’s books, please use the Children's Project Proposal form. For Children’s picture book proposals, we do require a sample of the manuscript, or the complete manuscript if available. For non-picture book proposals, a sample of no more than 10 pages of the manuscript or proposed writing style is requested. Authors do not need to nominate an illustrator for their proposal. We welcome submissions and portfolios from children’s book illustrators too.

Once you submit a Proposal to us, please allow 8–12 weeks for us to assess your information. Your completed proposal will be evaluated by our commissioning team and may also be sent out for review. We may come back to you to discuss our assessment or review comments. The final stage of our proposal process is approval from our internal Publishing Committee. We will confirm with the outcome of your proposal, even if unsuccessful, but we are not able to provide detailed feedback or manuscript/writing reviews for unsuccessful submissions.

Please take a look at the Publishing Process for the stages after your proposal has been accepted.

Please note that we do not publish PhD theses without substantial value-added development, school textbooks, memoirs, autobiographies, reports, cookbooks, self-help, poetry, works of fiction or class readers. Thank you.