Favorite and Profitable Small Presses in SF&F

I have been watching Meisha for some time, but am resigned to the fact they will be closed to submissions for, well, pretty much ever.

heatland Press's website seems to offer no submission information other than that their collection Polyphony 6 will probably have a reading period between January and February of next year.

Telos takes me to Shocklines which is a store.

late 2000, Schwartz began selling horror books full-time via ebay under the name of SpinMatt Auctions, which was the forerunner to Shocklines.com, a site that aims to be the one-stop shop for horror-related merchandise on the web, with a focus on horror fiction and poetry as well as artwork and related areas.

Tri

Wheatland looks like an anthology collection pub house and they're not reading right now--queries at least from the outside.

Tri

Earthling Publications has been NO unrequested manuscripts since 2005 with no change of intent on their website since.

"How can I submit a manuscript or art for publication consideration?

Due to Earthling's publication schedule during 2005 and 2006 (books both announced and yet-to-be-announced), I regret to say that I am no longer accepting unsolicited manuscripts. Earthling has had a relatively open door policy over the past 4 years and has published some great work that arrived uninvited, but the volume of unsolicited work has increased (a nice thing) to beyond my capacity to seriously read and consider most (a bad thing). I will most likely invite unsolicited manuscripts again in the future, and I look forward to the day I can do that. Artwork is still invited, preferably by referring me to your site or alternatively, via hard copy"

Regards,
Scott

To me, Tachyon is the SF's cat's pajamas. I know just about all their authors from the old schood of the SFWA, and have been to a number of Sheila Finch's parties. I'd love to go with them. Alas, they're full up for now and not reading.

Tri

Cemetary Dance used to be a magazine I submitted to 16-years ago, very popular. Now they have a book division I see. That's great. Space and Time has been around for 40-years and and Gordon tried his hand at books and knocked out about six titles. Alas, Space and Time is shutting its doors this year so no more from them either.

Tri

The old cemetary dance website had info for submissions, the new one does not, other than to say they take no e-mail anything, hard copy queries are probably acceptable.

Regards,
Scott

Victoria's list is wonderful, but sadly, most are not in the market for submissions at this time. That limits those who do not yet have a relationship with publishers with fewer doors to knock upon.

Regards,
Scott

I noticed. I'm seeing closed shops everywhere. I might have to go Poddy, and I don't mean to the bathroom.

Looking at the Tor website the other day depressed me to where I almost crapped my heart out my keester. Most of the new titles were by their inhouse authors, and they were the big-name scribblers.

This is getting tough. (ETA, what am I saying...it always been tough)

*sigh* It seems that most of the good small presses are swamped with submissions and/or closed to new ones. Small Beer now accepts queries, but they only publish 3-6 books a year. Prime Books is swamped and booked full for the next couple of years (but they're publishing lots of good short story collections and anthologies in the meantime). Meisha Merlin has been closed for, like, ever, and will continue to be closed. Night Shade Books is really popular now but it is swamped and it might be closed to new subs for now.

I'm hoping this isn't a bad sign. On the one hand, it means these presses are getting word-of-mouth publicity and are likely to be publishing lots of good books in the future. But on the other hand, it's not very hopeful for new and unpublished writers.

Yeah, I've been alloting two hours a day just hunting down markets for the past six months. It's bleak, I can tell you. God bless Lynn Price of Behler, but they are not taking our genre any more.

I guess we have to remember that the publishers we are discussing are genre specific for us. I have no idea how the mystery writers are doing but it has to be doing better than us. I think Romance, chick lit, is still going very strong with more oportunities for unagented writers. Sometimes I wonder if writing outside of my genre will get me out of this mess.

Tri

Loose Id guidelines:
http://loose-id.com/prospective.aspx

Erotic romance epress, but the guidelines note that they focus on cross-genre and one of the things they're specifically looking for is "Strong, well-built science fiction, paranormal or urban fantasy worlds that support multiple stories." 20,000 words and up.

Opened July 2004, initially ebook only, but has started experimenting with print. Only a few print titles initially, to keep it at a level they can handle. Lightning Source POD with a distribution deal with Borders/Waldenbooks in the US.

Running through Tri's list:
No advance
Online catalogue for readers. There's also a print catalogue of the print books used for bookstore buyers.
Bookstore placement -- distribution agreement with Borders, and I've seen the books on the shelf in the romance section in my local branch.
Returns -- I believe so.
Large discount -- not sure what it is, but enough to make Borders happy.
National distributor -- not as far as I'm aware, other than the Borders deal (though wholesale through Ingram etc, of course).
POD
Contract -- I had my original contract looked over by an agent friend of a friend (Victoria and Jim would recognise the name) who didn't think there was anything particularly obnoxious. The contract has since been changed, and I've only recently seen the new version. As yet I haven't had it checked for weirdness. There are clauses I am not happy with by Jim's "if the publisher fell under a bus" methodology, but nothing that would make me throw it in the bin without even trying to negotiate the boilerplate.
Royalty percentage - reasonable for ebook (35% gross on direct sales, 50% net on sales via distributors). No escalator. I'll need to dig out the contract to check for print editions.
Has been reviewed in Romance Times multiple times.

This is *small* press. My sales are a few hundred to several hundred copies per title in the first one to two years. But they continue to sell a few copies each month even on backlist and the royalties are paid in a timely fashion. And they take novellas.

The romance and most notably erotic romances have been selling well. It seems chain book buyers are far more open to small pubs in these areas. In the end, no matter the true genre, sex sells.

As for pubs closing doors on the little guy, it's a terrible thing. That's why I have so much trouble in other authors who believe to not be pubbed by a big NY company is being published badly. Another fine reason for your list, to separate the good from the bad.

On a side note, I know someone who used to write for Harper Collins, now this person writes for a small epub. Did she suddenly lose the ability to write? No. The big pubs stopped taking the genre that she wrote in. The same happened to a lady with Kensington. It's not always skill that gets the deal but the swing of the market.

On the same note, a couple of EC authors had editors from large NY houses call them. That's right. No query. An RT review and a need in the market worked in their favor.

As for me, I recently received a rejection from Dorchester. On it was a personal note stating that they liked the book but the horror market had gone soft leaving little room. Ah well.

Here's PS Publishing.

Here's BenBella.

Here's Telos Publishing

Monkeybrain is releasing new fiction titles, but its output seems to be quite small.

"No unsolicited manuscripts" just means "don't send us the ms. without us asking for it." You can still query. It's worth querying even publishers that claim to be closed to submissions--if they're intrigued by a query, odds are they may ask to look at your work anyway.

- Victoria

Thanks, Victoria. Much better now.

Tri

BenBella is not interested in fiction right now:
"BenBella Books welcomes submissions from authors and their agents. We are looking for non-fiction only. Our guidelines are as follows:
If you have written or are planning a non-fiction work that you'd like to submit to us, please send the following information:"

Post Script Press has no information about submissions on their website in particular.

In the contact section it only says:
"How to Contact PS Publishing
To Contact PS Publishing with enquiries about publicity, advertising, forthcoming titles, or for any other general reason, please send an email to:

editor [at] pspublishing [dot] co [dot] uk"

Scott, what do you think about Windstorm Creative? They have a five-step program, and it's quite confusing and complicated. Good mission statement and sample contract--15% on gross, etc. But for the life of me I can't interpret the rest of their quidelines for SF and Fantasy. They want you to read their books in this genre first? Are they email submission?
This might be a good house, but I got cross-eyed reading everything! I'll hit the search on this one in Bewares.

Tri

There's a thread here in Absolute Write Bewares that goes back to 2003. I would say there are some caveats to Windstorm Creative. I haven't read the whole thread as it goes back to before I was around or even writing seriously for publication.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=990&highlight=windstorm+creative

P&E says: Poor contract, not recommended

Looks like you should scrutinize the contract and attempt to negotiate it they want the book. That will probably result in them declining the book though according to the Bewares thread.

Regards,
Scott

Yeah, I almost read that entire Windstorm thread before I got buggy-eyed. Sheesh. Two good points to consider: Apparently they do have a book store presence--this is documented, so it means they do have some type of distribution in place. They must have recently changed their royalty percentage of 15% net to 15% gross. Well, a good sign at least.

But, they have numerous complaints with production time, royalty payments, and low sales. I can't make a solid determination on this one yet until I've got some fresh, current info. P&E gives them a "Not recommended" for contractual reasons.

Tri

There's DNA/Nartea as a small publishing house. I do not know much about them, they don't say they're closed to submission, but neither are they encouraging in their tone. There's no contract data or detailed distribution information though they seem to have distributors in several European countries besides in the U.S. They have a neutral rating at P&E.

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Okay, looks like there is a new kid on the block in the form of Solaris, which is an imprint of BL Publishing. I really like the website, and it looks like they're pouring massive publicity and resources into this new launch. They claim to publish books in the U.S. and England at the same time, and have had a lot of news, suport and interviews. I'm a wee bit distressed because their mission statement indicates that they are looking for previously published authors that have agents. Further reading indicates a rather pompous, or elitest soliciation for big names or great mid-list novelists. They go so far as to say "Big Name author, if you have a trunk novel that you're in love with, but can't get it pubbed, just pitch our way."

I dunno. I might barely qualify with lots of short story stuff out in the magazine markets, plus an agent, but they could tell me to take a walk too. They do have an online query box, so I suppose one could ask about projects.

I read good house and all, but I also read "Fancy Pants" publisher who might not be interested in the little guy.

Tri