Which sets the standard. Get the tactics, the equipment or the feeling wrong and a substantial part of your readership will close the book, and say so publicly.
The central problem of the genre is calibration. Too much explicit detail and the book becomes something readers endure rather than read; too little and it is a war novel with the war taken out, which no reader of the genre will accept.
The writers here include veterans, which matters less for authenticity of detail (that can be researched) than for knowing where that line sits. The aim is a novel that resonates because it is true to the experience, not one that shocks because it can.
These attract genuinely different readers. A reader who wants a covert-operations thriller is not the reader who wants a psychological study of the same operation.
- 01
War novels
Realistic battle, character development, authentic strategy and tactics, and the moral dilemmas the situation produces. Action with emotional depth rather than instead of it.
- 02
War books
The wider literature of conflict: detailed accounts of specific wars and battles, soldiers' memoirs, strategic operations, and the socio-political examination around them.
- 03
Military action
Fast-paced combat, battlefield sequences, modern weaponry and equipment, covert operations and intelligence subplots, with protagonists who can carry the pace.
- 04
Historical war fiction
Reconstructions of known battles and campaigns, historical figures portrayed carefully, and the social and cultural dynamics of the period, including the conflicts that get overlooked.
- 05
Psychological war fiction
The interior of it: what combat does to the people in it, the moral quandaries, the effect on civilians, and the long consequences of trauma. The hardest of the five to write well.
Four things that matter in a genre where readers check your work.
- 01
Writers with genre knowledge
Military history, tactics and culture, understood rather than looked up. Some of the writers are veterans, and the difference shows in what they know not to write.
- 02
Researched before written
Settings, historical events and military detail researched thoroughly, so tactics, equipment and the mindset of service personnel hold up to a reader who knows.
- 03
Your book, your specifications
A period, a branch, a campaign, a theatre, the story is built to what you want rather than to a generic war. A novel set in a particular unit is a different book from one set in a particular war.
- 04
Published either way
Straight guidance on the publishing route that suits the book, whether that is here, elsewhere, or on your own.
Eight steps, and the second one takes longer here than in any other genre.
Initial consultation
Your vision, your goals and the specific requirements for the book, including the period, theatre and branch, which determine everything after.
Research and planning
Thorough research on the chosen theme: historical, tactical and cultural. This is the longest stage in the genre and skipping it is what produces books veterans put down.
Character development
Characters built with backgrounds, motivations and experiences that hold, people a reader believes were actually there.
Writing
The manuscript written to the register of the genre: restrained where restraint carries more, specific where specificity is what makes it true.
Revisions
Your feedback worked through, including on the calibration question, how much of the war belongs on the page is ultimately your call.
Editing
Grammar, syntax and style, plus a check that the military detail is still consistent after the revisions.
Cover design
A cover that reads as the genre without resorting to its most exhausted imagery.
Publication
Help through the publishing process and the marketing decisions around it, if you want it.
A few of the people the house has worked with, in their own words.
I had eleven years of notes and no book. What I got back read like me on a good day, my turns of phrase, my arguments, and none of the padding I would have added myself. The first chapter arrived and I stopped worrying.
Marianne ElleryIndependent author The structural edit was not comfortable reading. It told me the second half started in the wrong place, which I had suspected for a year and nobody had said out loud. Moving three chapters fixed a problem I had been trying to solve with better sentences.
Devon AlukoIndependent author What sold me was being told I did not need half of what I had asked for. I came in wanting the full package and left with a cover, a proofread and an honest explanation of why the rest would not have helped yet.
Priya RaghunathanIndependent author Three cover directions, all of them plausible, none of them the thing I had described. The one I picked worked at the size that actually matters, I could recognise it in a list of forty other books, which is more than I can say for my first attempt.
Tobias HearnIndependent author I own the book outright and that was written down before I paid anything. After two years of being quoted percentages by people who would not put them in writing, that was the whole reason I stayed.
Cecile MarchandIndependent author The audiobook took longer than I expected and they told me why each time rather than going quiet. The narrator they cast got my grandmother's accent right, which I had assumed would be the thing I had to let go of.
Nathan BoakyeIndependent author
What authors ask before writing about war.
Because the genre has an unusually knowledgeable readership and a low tolerance for error. A writer who understands military settings, tactics and character brings authenticity that research alone does not, mostly in the form of knowing which details matter and which are noise.
Extensive research into settings, historical events and military science, so tactics, equipment and the mindset of service personnel are depicted credibly. Where writers have served, they draw on that directly. Where they have not, the work is checked by someone who has.
Yes, and it is usually better if it is. A story set in the Second World War, Vietnam, or a particular branch or unit is far stronger than one set in a generic war, because the specifics are where the authenticity lives. Tell us the period and the theatre and the research is built around them.
As graphic as you decide, and no more. That calibration is discussed at the start and revisited during revisions, because it is a judgement about your readers rather than a craft rule. Some of the most effective war fiction is restrained; some of it is not.
It starts with discussions to establish the concept and your goals. Research follows, then plotting, character development and the integration of military detail. Communication stays open throughout, with your input sought at each stage rather than only at the end, which in this genre matters, because you are usually the one who knows what the book is trying to say about the war.
You do, completely. The author holds 100% of the rights to their work, in every format, for its whole life. The house is paid for the work it does, not with a share of the book. That is the arrangement the house reopened in 2008 to offer, and it does not change with the tier, the price or the point at which you come to us.
Yes. Your name is on the cover and in the record. Everyone who works on the book (writer, editor, designer) works on your book, and none of them is credited on it unless you ask for them to be.
Yes. Your story is yours, and nothing about the project leaves the house. We will sign your NDA before you send anything, or supply ours if you would rather use one.
No. Six disciplines are available and you take the ones you need. Authors arrive here at every stage (with an idea, a half-draft, or a finished manuscript that only needs a cover and a shelf) and the work starts where you actually are.
It depends on the work: length, how much research is involved, how much of the book already exists, and which disciplines you need. There is no list price for a book, and any firm who gives you one before reading your material is quoting something other than your book. Tell us where you are and we will price the actual job.
Move the marker. You do not need to know what to call it: you only need to know where you are.
Tell us where your manuscript is, where you want it to go, and we'll show you what's possible.