We warmly welcome submissions to Café Royal Books. Prior to submission, we kindly ask you to explore our website to familiarise yourself with the type of books and subjects we publish. While our focus is primarily around photography that documents people and the environment, particularly between 1960 and 2005, with connections to Britain and Ireland, this serves more as a guideline to indicate what we generally do not publish.
We embrace submissions from all individuals, regardless of their level of experience—whether you're a professional photographer or someone who has only made 30 pictures in their lifetime. Whether you're well-known, obscure, local, or international, we encourage you to share your work with us. Our commitment is to develop Café Royal Books into an inclusive and diverse archive that offers a true reflection of life in Britain, Ireland and beyond.
We try not to suggest specific subject matters to avoid limiting the scope of submissions. We review all submissions comprehensively. While we tend to publish less rural, farming, or sailing-related content, we still encourage you to submit. We have a particular interest in documenting aspects of change, be it in society, fashion, music, youth or sub-culture, or the urban landscape and high street, although our interests extend beyond these themes.
Due to the high volume of submissions we receive, we can only respond to submissions that we feel would work, usually within around two weeks. We tend to look around, especially if you have a website. If you haven't received a response within this timeframe, there's no need to resend your submission or issue a reminder. There are various reasons a submission might or might not work for us, such as its alignment or clash with our other scheduled publications.
We operate digitally and lack the capability to scan negatives. We strongly advise scanning negatives for preservation purposes, regardless of whether you're submitting to us or not. Preserving these visual records safeguards memories and histories from potentially being lost forever.
To submit your work, please send a brief introduction along with a web link via email. If your work isn't available online, kindly refrain from sending image files via email. Instead, please use WeTransfer to send both the files and introduction as a single transfer. Please direct submissions to submissions@caferoyalbooks.com. We very much appreciate you sharing your work with us. Thank you for considering Café Royal Books as a platform for your photography.
Café Royal Books at Stills, Edinburgh