Contemporary Romance Publishers

I would definitely recommend Samhain Publishing. (I've been working with them since 2009 and love them.)

viridian6 said:

i would kill to work with Samhain. they've had my full since December 11.

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Fingers crossed for you! They've been great to work with.

I'd second Samhain, for sure.

I'm giving Entangled a spin - there are some concerns about them in their thread, obviously, but they do have solid sales. I'm hoping that as long as I take them for what they seem to be (a trope-driven house with a slightly unconventional/rushed editing process), things might work out.

If you're writing het, those are honestly the only two that I've worked with that I would recommend. But others have had good luck with Loose Id and Carina - have you read those threads?

If you're writing m/m, I'd say Dreamspinner is definitely worth a try. I haven't seen any sales yet from Riptide, but they have a lot of pretty satisfied authors (and I think they cover the full LGBT spectrum).

I follow Angela James on Twitter. She's the editorial director at Carina US (as opposed to Carina UK, which seems to have a more problematic reputation) As of last July, Carina US was calling for contemp everything and m/m everything and erotica and...lots of stuff. You might want to take a look at their blog, and here's a "What we're looking for."

Good luck!

I'm not sure how many small- to mid- size publishers are getting their books into bookstores, though... or, I guess more relevantly, how many no-agent-needed publishers have bookstore placement.

I'm sure there are some. But it might be more useful to do a similar exercise on Amazon instead of a physical bookstore?

viridian6 said:

I've decided to stop querying agents & go for small/medium publishers on my own. But finding these companies has me beating my head against my desk (which I realize is why you get an agent...)

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Have you checked out Loveswept and Avon Impulse? I don't think you need an agent to submit to them, though I also don't know what their sales are like.

viridian6 said:

Loveswept - never heard of them. Thx! I'll look into them!

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It's the digital-first (or digital-only, I'm not sure) imprint of Random House. http://www.readloveswept.com/#

To add to the other suggestions, my research showed good things about Liquid Silver. They've been in the business for 15 years and publish M/F as well as other combinations. Not sure how solid their sales are (I confess I don't go by sales numbers, much, as I think there are certain hot genres and pairings, and no matter how good a book you write or the efforts of a publisher, sometimes it just doesn't depend on you or the publisher, but what the market wants to read. E.g. I have a book that's sold oodles of copies, and another that's a slow trickler. Same publisher, same author--different readership). Anyhoo, I liked LS enough to submit an M/F novella to them a while back, and I liked their contract (they don't rights grab!) By the end of the year I'll be in a position to see what their sales are like for contemporary M/F, heat level 2 (graphic raunch but not erotica).

In addition to Loveswept, there's also Forever Yours (Hachette's digital-first imprint), and I think you can submit to Kensington without an agent.

Desert Breeze (print and e-) accepts romances that are PG and G rated. They will not publish erotic romance. So far, my print books haven't made it into b&m stores, so if this is a deal breaker for you, they mightn't be your cuppa.

Just wanted to say thanks for this thread. It's super helpful for me, too. I've recently decided not to sub anything else to my current epub because the heat level in my books is a bit lower than what their readers are looking for.

I have medium-heat M/F contemporaries with both Decadent and Liquid Silver. My Decadent titles sell better, but this could just be random/timing. Both pubs have fair, author-friendly contracts (in my opinion). They've also both paid on-time (quarterly), send me regular sales statements, and have great communication. I haven't regretted working with either of them.

Disclaimer: Both pubs are predominantly electronic-only. I only have one title out in print (through Decadent), but it's POD. In short, if your dream is to have your book on the shelves at B&N, neither of these pubs would be a good fit.

P.S. Decadent doesn't take simultaneous subs either... It kinda works for me since I prefer to sub one place at a time. Liquid Silver does take simultaneous subs though.

Entangled has kind of a mixed reputation, depending on whom you ask. *Personally* I wouldn't submit to them again. I sent them a project for which I received a revise/resubmit, but when I took a close look at what they wanted, I would have had to pretty much scrap the entire novel and rewrite it from scratch, and some of the changes they wanted would have completely changed the characterization and a couple of the major plot points.

But I've heard wonderful things about them from other authors, so YMMV.

To the best of my knowledge, Kensington doesn't require agents, and Lyrical Press, which has kind of taken over as Kensington's digital arm since Kensington bought them out, definitely doesn't. And the reputation is solid, from what I've seen, though lately I think there were a few concerns voiced about Lyrical in their Bewares thread.

Loose Id is solid for an e-pub, though I *think* M/M, menage, BDSM, etc. sell better for them than pure hetero contemporary. (Though my next project with them is a hetero contemporary...)

Try Tirgearr Publishing. They are ebook publishers, small, based in Ireland, and specialize in historical romance, but are branching out. They branched out enough to publish my travel books to Scotland and Ireland, and they're great folks. http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/index.htm