Directory of
Traditional Book Publishers
Traditional Book Publishers Friendly to First-Time Authors
(click on the publisher's Logo for more information.)
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| Looking for Juvenile, short story collections and contemporary mainstream. | Science books, and SCI FI books with an educational slant. | Adventure, Experimental, Horror, Humor, Literary, Mainstream/Contemporary, Mystery, Romance, Sports, Suspense. |
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| Alef Design Group | 
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| Judaic fiction and non-fiction | True crime and paranormal, plus literary crime fiction. | Christian non-fiction and Christian fiction for children. |
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| Arjuna Library Press | 
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| Most genres considered as long as they overlying theme is that of the surreal. | Exclusively Science Fiction and Fantasy. Prefers emailed queries or submit complete manuscript. | Young adult fiction and nonfiction as well as adult fiction for young adults (single titles and series). Please, nothing that would be too graphic for anyone under 17 years old. |
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| Short literary novels, SS collections and some poetry. | Christian fiction and non-fiction. Fiction genres include romance and suspense. | Literary fiction and poetry only! They are not interested in genre work or "mass market appeal". |
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| Short novels of these genres: Adventure, Fantasy (space fantasy), Historical, Military/War, Mystery (amateur, sleuth, police procedural, private eye/hardboiled), Science Fiction, Western frontier. | Stories heavy on romance with elements of adventure/intrigue/mystery. Humorous love stories are always appreciated. Each story is formatted into a script of 60-64 panels, comprising narrative, dialogue, and art direction. | Adventure, Fantasy, Historical, Horror, Mainstream/Contemporary, Military/War, Multicultural, Mystery, Science Fiction, Suspense. |
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| A very friendly publisher that is somewhat new to the publishing world. It is their goal to discover the new talent that the dusty old giants are pushing aside. Virtually any genre is considered. Short story collections and horror are also welcome. To get started, try submitting to the very excellent literary magazine, Writer's Post Journal, published by this same company. | Algonquin publishes literary fiction and nonfiction, cookbooks, and lifestyle books (about family, animals, food, flowers, adventure, and other topics of interest). They don't publish poetry, genre fiction (romance, science fiction, etc.), or children's books. | Fantasy and Sci-Fi. Only does a couple of books a year and gets several hundred submissions a year. But they welcome unagented submissions and promise to respond within three weeks. Hmmm. |
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| Behler is looking for General Fiction, Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Western novels from 60K words on up. They welcome unagented submissions and even have a process for accepting electronic submissions. | This independent publisher specializes in poetry chapbooks and collections of short stories. They also feature an annual competition in each of these genres. | |
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| Spy thrillers. This is a new company that has put out very few books so far. They're open to unpublished or unagented writers. But remember -- ONLY SPY THRILLERS. | Mainstream fiction, short story collections and novels by emerging and established writers. Cadmus also has picked up the rights to some rather heady names such as Paul Bowles and Herman Melville. | Publishes poetry chapbooks. British publisher. |
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| Fantasy and Sci-Fi. Open to new and unagented authors. They only read submissions in May, August and December. Takes up to four months to make a decision, but that's faster than the big houses. | Fantasy and Sci-Fi. 75K to 100K words. Send a cover letter, synopsis and the first three chapters. They welcome new authors. | For the most part, this company specializes in POD distribution of classic Sci-Fi titles that have gone out of print. However, each year, they publish a small collection of new titles as well. Maybe you could be one of them. |
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| Graywolf Press is a literary press that publishes twenty-one books annually, mostly collections of poetry, essays, novels, and short stories. They don't do children's literature, self-help or how-to guides, or genre work such as romance, science fiction, thrillers, detective fiction, horror stories, westerns, historical fiction, etc. | Short fiction, poetry and novels by emerging and established writers. They stuff they do is kind of strange so check them out before sending in your manuscript to make sure it fits their style. | ImaJinn specializes in cross-genre romances. Supernatural, fantasy, futuristic Sci-Fi and paranormal fiction (without the ghosts, thank you) are all their cup of tea. But remember, at the root of the story MUST be a romance. |
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| Does not do poetry or short story collections. Is looking for book length fiction, creative non-fiction and memoirs. | Looking for short story collections and novels. Is currently overstocked on poetry. | Mainstream fiction and poetry collections. |
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| Publishes novels, short story collections, poetry chapbooks and book-length works of creative non-fiction. Also has an annual contest for previously unpublished writers in each of the above categories. | Novels, short story collections, creative non-fiction and poetry chapbooks. Also sponsors an annual competition in the aforementioned categories. | Science Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Suspense, Sci-Fi. If your story is one of the imaginative genres, they want to see it. Unpublished writers are almost as welcome as Stephen King. (I did say almost!) They ONLY accept email submissions. See their submissions page for details. |
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| Fiction and creative non-fiction. Also sponsors The American Fiction Project. This is an ongoing series of anthologies containing short fiction by new and emerging writers. | New Wave Fabulist fiction is their specialty. This is defined as literary work that would otherwise be classified as science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror. They also have a division that publishes poetry chapbooks. | Hardcover and trade paperbacks. Does both self-help for adults and a small amount of genre fictions. Does accept queries by email but prefers you to mail a cover letter query and about thirty pages of your manuscript. |
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| Accepts proposals for fiction and nonfiction manuscripts, including those for novels, novellas, short story collections, biography, essays, literary anthologies, literary criticism, literature in translation, memoir, contemporary issues, Jewish and Middle East Studies, Women's Studies, travel writing, and works for a Young Adult readership. Queries should include a cover letter, author background and publication history, a detailed synopsis of the proposed work, and a sample chapter. | Looking for untraditional fantasy. Got elves? Forget it! They won't read it. Leave your wizards and dragons behind as well. They want something NEW!! Send a query letter and the first thirty or forty pages of your manuscript and follow the guidelines on their site. | Game-friendly horror and fantasy. They also publish trade paperback fiction in the areas of horror and fantasy fiction. I recommend you study their guidelines before you send them anything. |
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Kayleighbug Books |
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| Primarily obtains manuscripts through their prestigious Kathryn Morton and Mary McCarthy prizes in poetry and short fiction. In September, they open the gates to all submissions. | This is a fascinating market. They take longer short stories to very short novels (4500 to 50000 words) and put them into chapbooks. They like any kind of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. They have a rather finicky submissions method, but since they accept online submissions and cheerfully consider unpublished authors, it's worth going to their website to check it out. | This small publisher does a wide variety of different writing styles, ranging from novels, to short fiction collections, biography, political commentary, erotica. You name it, if it's eclectic, they do it. |
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| General non-fiction, historical biographies, general reference/how to works, romance fiction (all categories, including Torrid, see below), mainstream fiction, historical, the American west and westerns, inspirational and Christian themes, science fiction and fantasy, horror, suspense/thrillers, and paranormal. | ||
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