With the rise in epublishing, many new authors are going the self-publishing route. But there are still plenty of authors who prefer to focus on writing and not on spending time turning a manuscript into ebook format. If you are one of those authors who would like to have a publisher take care of those issues for you, read on.
Finding an agent can be a long and time consuming process, after which the equally arduous task of submitting to publishers begins. Many pre-published authors find it hard to get agents to consider their work, since they are as yet an “unknown.” These three professional publishing houses accept un-agented submissions. However, the submissions should be as highly polished and edited as possible to have the best odds at publication.
Entangled Press
Entangled Press, premiering in the Summer of 2011, announces itself as providing a new business model for writers. With an impressive stable of authors already on board, they are still looking for new and emerging talent to publish with them.
Entangled Press provides professional editing and professional covers for their books. The books will be released in trade paperback and ebook formats. In addition they've reinstated a practice the publishing industry has largely moved away from; they assign a publicist to each book, ensuring author assistance in promotion and name recognition. This serves to grow sales and grow reader audiences.
The one thing they don't do is offer an advance. They offset the lack of advance with high royalties that increase with rising book sales. An advance must be earned back before an author receives royalties, so this is something that many authors may feel is a fair exchange.
The Entangled Publishing guidelines call for many genres, from science fiction to paranormal to romance and young adult. The submissions page provides detailed information about genre, word length, and format. They are accepting agented and un-agented submissions at the time of this writing.
Etopia Press
Etopia Press is a new market taking advantage of the booming ebook model. One of the editors stated they want well-crafted stories of all lengths in all genres that may be considered “hard to place” by traditional publishing houses. Books will be published in trade paperback and ebook formats. Etopia Press is a royalty paying publisher.
In addition to novels and short stories, they have a call for themed stories for upcoming anthologies. The Etopia Press submissions page gives complete guidelines, including how to format the work.
Carina Press
Carina Press is looking for steampunk, science fiction, thrillers, futuristic, and niche fiction. They state they will consider stories from 15,000 words to 100,000 or more words. They are also open to themed anthologies as announced on their page.
Carina Press is the digital imprint of one of the world's largest traditional publishing houses, Harlequin. It gives this publisher the backing and editorial support to produce books with a high level of professionalism. All books are published as ebooks and a selection of books will be issued in print format. In addition, the books are available in audio format. For book reviewers, the galleys are available through NetGalley. All of this adds up to good exposure for the author.
Carefully consider a publishing house before submitting. Read their list of titles, and a few of their books. Look for professional grade cover art, quality editing, and copy free of typos and ebook errors. Make sure the standard of writing meets your expectations before signing a contract.
If you've had experiences with any of these publishers, please leave a comment to share it with other readers and writers.
Suzanne Pitner - Suzanne Pitner is a teacher and published writer. A member of RWA and YARWA, she writes fiction as Suzanne Lilly.
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