Script Publishing

Getting your work published

Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic. - Jean Sibelius

What do we publish?

Primarily, we publish anything from monologues to full length, large cast stage plays to be performed to audiences of all ages.

Who are 'Scripts for Stage'?

We do not charge for publishing scripts but we do need to be convinced that anything we publish has a market and is entertaining, engaging or innovative. We believe we see things in scripts that other play publishers don't see and we also believe that Theatre Groups and other production companies are after both traditional and unusual and creative works which other publishers don't currently offer.  If this is your first submission or you're submitting something that's been rejected elsewhere, we're excited to read it!  Unfortunately, because of the volume of submissions we receive, we cannot give you a full evaluation of your script if we reject it but we will explain the reasons why.

How do I submit my play?

Firstly, we'll need you to fill in the webform below which lets us know about what you've written so that we can tell you straight away whether it's something we would potentially publish.  If we are interested, we'll ask you to submit your play by e-mail, formatted to our house-style in Microsoft Word format.  We're an on-line publisher so we will need scripts to be formatted to be read online.  You can see an example of our house-style here.
Please only send us one enquiry at a time but please bear in mind that we do get a lot of publishing enquiries which means we can't reply to them all. So do tell us the beginning, middle and end of the play and do ensure the synopsis is well written and engaging. If we haven't responded to you within 7 days then please assume that we don't think your idea is right for our catalogue. In which case, if you do have other scripts, we might be interested in one of those instead - so please do send another enquiry through about a different script after the 7 days have elapsed.

Royalties

If we publish your play, it will be available to read in full online and customers will be able to purchase digital and physical copies of scripts and performance licences. Once an organisation or individual buys something, they have to pay immediately via paypal or Debit/Credit card.  We will contact you or your literary agent each Quarter (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sept, Oct-Dec) to advise you of the number of (and details of) sales and transfer your royalties to your bank account. If you would prefer to be paid by Paypal, we can arrange this but Paypal charge us (and you) for moving money around so this charge would be deducted from your royalty fee.  Our commission is around 10-20% of all sales after tax. The commission is dependent on the type of work, length of script, potential market and how much work is involved in getting your play to market.  We set what we believe to be the best prices in the market because we can offer scripts digitally (which makes it easier for the producing company to distribute). From time to time, we will offer scripts at a discount (such as our showcase scripts) as we understand that your ambition is to see your script realised on stage in front of an audience. Your royalty will be significantly higher from a performance licence than from a script sale so we assume you'd rather make half the royalty on a script (and make a sale) which gives you a higher chance of receiving a full royalty on a performance licence.

Copyright and Musicals

If we publish your play, you retain all the rights (which means you still own 100% of your work). You may withdraw your work at any time.  However, if an organisation has purchased one of your scripts along with a performance licence before it is withdrawn from our site, the agreement with that organisation must be honoured.  Theatre groups can plan their shows up to three years in advance so once a purchase has been made, the agreement to allow the group to produce the play is final.

At present we do not publish musicals.  We are relatively new to the script publishing market and want to ensure both our playwrights and customers receive our full attention. We may publish music with plays in the future so please keep in touch with this page for any updates.  Suggesting music with your script (especially Pantomime) is fine, especially if you have re-written the words to fit with your plot.  We would publish the new words but not the music (as this is already published and subject to copyright).

Publishing Enquiry Form

(1500 words runs at about 10 minutes)
Number of actors needed without doubling
We don't want a blurb, we want to know what your play is about and what happens.