VAGABONDS is a platform for the radical imagination.
We publish short, pamphlet-style books with Pluto Press and a hybrid newsletter and podcast on Substack.
VAGAGBONDS is edited by Max Haiven with a little help from his friends.
To purchase VAGABONDS books worldwide, visit the website of Pluto' Press.
For information on submissions, please consult our guide.
For other inquiries, write to max at vagabonds.xyz
The VAGABONDS editorial advisory board includes Phanuel Antwi, Sita Balani, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Manolo Callahan, Isa Fremeaux, Stefano Harney, Marc Herbst, Valeria Graziano, Bue Rübner Hansen, Brian Holmes, Jay Jordan, Eunsong Kim, Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Alana Lentin, Julio Linares, Eli Meyerhoff, Nick Mirzoeff, Massimiliano Mao Mollona, Annie Paradise, Robbie Richardson, Jerome Roos, Brett Scott, Sarah Stein Lubrano, Ezra Winton, Manuela Zechner.
Submissions
VAGAGBONDS publishes public-facing essays (<3000 words) and pamphlet-style books (<30,000 words) from established and emerging authors. We prize writing that is radical in its politics, rigorous in its thinking, and resonant with the great struggles of our time for collective liberation.
While the writing we publish can be imaginative, poetic and playful, we don’t publish fiction or poetry. While many of the things we publish are about ideas, demonstrate a high caliber of thought and research, and are even written by people working in universities, we do not publish academic arguments. While we occasionally we publish co-written works, we do not publish compilations or collections or previously published work. We are interested in original translations.
If you might like to publish short or long-form writing with us, the first step is to prepare a very short pitch for the editor, Max Haiven. That pitch should make clear:
What you want to write, what it’s central argument is, and why it’s original and important to a public-facing audience. You might also include a very brief explanation of how your argument will unfold
Why you are the person to write it, what experience or specialization you have, and how soon you expect to have completed a draft.
A justification for why your writing belongs as part of VAGABONDS, which ought to demonstrate a familiarity with the series and its goals.
Please keep your pitch to less than one page. If your pitch is of interest and we have capacity, we’ll follow up. Please don’t take it personally if we don’t. Life is short and the inbox is deep. We’re doing our best.
Those wishing to write for the short-form web platform can expect to work closely with the editor on all aspects of their piece, from conceptual development to final publication. We invite and strongly encourage our short-form writers to also record their essay in audio format for our podcast (or let us do it for you), and to be available for an online “meet the author” session, usually within a month of publication. We offer a modest and largely symbolic $100 USD (or equivalent) honourarium to short-form writers upon successful publication. All our content is published under a creative commons license (BY-NC-ND), to which the author retains the rights.
Those wishing to propose a book project should be prepared to work with the editor to develop a comprehensive proposal, which the editor will send out for review to two experts. This process can take several months. If their recommendations are supportive, the proposal and reviews are forwarded to both VAGABONDS editorial advisory committee and Pluto Press for consideration and, if both are in favour of publication, the latter will issue the author(s) a standard book contract. Thereafter, the author will work closely with the editor to prepare a manuscript that will also be sent out for review to two experts, a process that culminates in a convivial but critical review meeting between author, editor and reviewers. This will help prepare the manuscript for a final delivery to the publisher for production. Authors can expect an industry-standard royalty from sales of their book, to be negotiated. Books published in the VAGABONDS series are embargoed for one year to allow for paper and ebook sales, then their unformatted contents are published freely online. While VAGABONDS are short books intended to speak to the moment, they are also of high quality, which takes time. It’s rare but not unheard of to see a book published within two years of an author initially pitching the idea to the editor. Often, the editor will encourage the author to pilot their book idea first as a short-form VAGABONDS essay.
