Looking to publish? Meet your dream editor, designer and marketer on Reedsy.

Find the perfect editor for your next book

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

DIRECTORY

Best Independent Publishers in 2024

Showing 37 indie publishers that match your search.

Publisher of: Fiction and Nonfiction

This New York-based press kicked off with a series of Dive Bar guides that showed much-traveled tourist hubs, from San Francisco to Chicago, in an offbeat new light. These days, their list tilts much more towards literary fiction as well as political nonfiction: since the Bush years, Ig authors have been tackling issues from workers’ rights to PTSD care for veterans.

🔥 Hit title: Missile Paradise by Ron Tanner

⭐️ Best known for: Journalism, Literary Fiction

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Queries. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction and Nonfiction

Quirk Books is best known for publishing Seth Grahame-Smith’s brilliant decision to mash up Regency romance and B-movie horror, a title that ultimately became an NYT bestseller — not to mention a Lily James-led film. True to its name, this Philly-based indie press injects a whole lot of whimsy into the literary world. Quirk’s publishing program is unabashedly reader-centric, aiming to produce “objects of delight and desire”. Its titles — from humorous essays on celebrity to LGBT-affirming picture books — are clever, irreverent, and eminently giftable.

🔥 Hit title: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

⭐️ Best known for: How-To Guides, Humor, Science Fiction & Fantasy, YA

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Book Proposals, Full Manuscripts. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction and Nonfiction

Forest Avenue Press focuses on literary fiction, occasionally dipping their toes into memoir as well. Regardless of genre, they aim to publish work animated by joy: not necessarily stories with happy endings, but work that shows off the author’s capacity for humor and freewheeling imagination. As a result, their catalogue abounds with oddball books, each with a broad palette of literary influences. An author-focused press with a relatively small stable of talent, Forest Avenue lavishes more time and money on marketing each title than your typical indie publisher.

🔥 Hit title: Queen of Spades by Michael Shou-Yung Shum

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Full Manuscripts. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Short Fiction

Founded in 2014, this LA-based publisher is relatively young. But it’s already assembled a formidable stable of talent: rising star Esmé Weijun Wang shares shelf space with Booker, Pulitzer, and Philip K Dick Prize winners. Many of their titles are multicultural family dramas, full of complex relationships and pitch-perfect characterization. However, their catalogue ranges beyond literary fiction to embrace highbrow speculative fiction, collections of journalism, and even self-help books.

🔥 Hit title: The Border of Paradise by Esmé Weijun Wang

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Queries. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Nonfiction

This edgy, Manchester-based press has furnished a voice for the counterculture since 1991. Originally founded to sell VHS copies of a controversial cult director’s latest release, Headpress hasn’t strayed far from its roots in pulp, grindhouse, and all things indie film. Beyond its sharp criticism of movie genres that don't get a lot mainstream attention, Headpress publishes widely across the spectrum of quirky nonfiction. Look through its list of titles, and you'll see everything from deep cuts on underground music to trippy meditations on European folklore.

🔥 Hit title: Bleeding Skull by Joseph A. Ziemba and Dan Budnik

⭐️ Best known for: Biography, Film, Journalism

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Queries. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction and Short Fiction

This Manhattan-based press releases 90 books a year, making it relatively big for an indie publisher. It’s especially well-known among mystery connoisseurs for its Soho Crime imprint, which specializes in top-notch thrillers with a strong sense of place, a bit like traditional detective fiction crossed with travelogue. Whether it takes place in Denmark or Thailand, a Soho Crime title will set the scene so vividly you’ll feel you’re walking alongside the detective down those minutely rendered streets. Soho also publishes YA through Soho Teen and literary fiction through Soho Press proper.

🔥 Hit title: The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura and Satoko Izumo (translator)

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction, Mysteries, YA

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Full Manuscripts. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Poetry and Short Fiction

Founded in 1976, BOA Editions focuses on poetry. Though they publish fewer than 20 books a year, their editors are discerning enough to sniff out plenty of prizewinners. BOA’s roster includes decorated — and phenomenally popular — poets like National Book Award finalist Lucille Clifton and Naomi Shihab Nye, the first Arab American to be named the Young People’s Poet Laureate. But BOA also looks beyond verse, running several contests for short fiction writers, as well as poets seeking publication.

🔥 Hit title: Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton

⭐️ Best known for: Poetry Collections

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Contest Entries. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction and Nonfiction

Named after the left-hand page, this left-leaning publisher has been furnishing reading material for prospective revolutionaries since 1970. No wonder Harper’s hailed it as “Anglo-America’s preeminent radical press.” They lean more literary theory than literary fiction, offering sharp, syllabus-ready books across the full slate of humanities and social science disciplines, from Anthropology to Race and Ethnicity. Though many of their writers belong to the professoriate, Verso Books isn’t a university press. Their nonfiction, though intellectually rigorous, tends to be snappier than your usual academic fare.

🔥 Hit title: Females: A Concern by Andrea Long Chu

⭐️ Best known for: Biography, History, Journalism

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Book Proposals. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Short Fiction

This Massachusetts-based press prides itself on the high production value of its titles, which range from novels and creative nonfiction to poetry. They treat their books as art objects — “a joy,” in the press’s own words, “to hold as well as read.” Crack open those impeccably printed pages, and you’ll find artful language, unsurpassed lyricism, and playful experimentation with form, no matter what the genre. The bulk of Tupelo Press's catalogue consists of poetry collections, although they also publish literary fiction and creative nonfiction.

🔥 Hit title: Good Bones by Maggie Smith

⭐️ Best known for: Poetry Collections

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Contest Entries. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction and Nonfiction

EnvelopeBooks is a new independent publishing house founded in the summer of 2020. An offshoot of Booklaunch, a quarterly books and publishing freesheet that makes its way to 50,000 homes per issue, the EnvelopeBooks imprint is dedicated to working with authors to produce high-quality books.

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Full Manuscripts. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Short Fiction

Founded in 1974, Graywolf Press is a jewel among independent publishers. The 35 or so titles it releases every year are regularly showered with laurels, from rave NYT reviews to “best of the year” nods. It’s no exaggeration to call Graywolf one of the top publishing houses of any size, despite its relatively modest, $4 million annual budget. No wonder established writers, who have the name recognition to court the Big 5, often opt to stick with this storied small press instead.

🔥 Hit title: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction, Memoirs

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Contest Entries. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction and Nonfiction

This Portland-based indie press is highly literary without being pretentious. Their wheelhouse is fairly broad, focusing on fiction and narrative nonfiction that puts vivid storytelling on display. In practice, that often means character-driven contemporary novels and emotionally rich memoirs that pull you into all the complexities of real-life relationships. You don’t have to write within spitting distance of Forest Park to be published by Hawthorne: they work with authors from all over the country. But, true to their geographic roots, Hawthorne Books has quite a few Oregon-centered titles on their list.

🔥 Hit title: California Calling by Natalie Singer

⭐️ Best known for: How-To Guides

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? No

Publisher of: Fiction and Nonfiction

Brooklyn-based Akashic Books was founded by the post-hardcore bassist Johnny Temple in 1997. It still operates out of the borough’s trendy Old American Can Factory, putting out galleys in the same industrial complex where electronica acts jam and indie painters hang their canvases. But in the last decade, they’ve started selling books all over the country. Dedicated to “reverse-gentrification of the literary world,” they highlight marginalized and anti-establishment authors, giving them an outlet for work considered too niche (or too incendiary) for corporate publishing.

🔥 Hit title: A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes

⭐️ Best known for: Mysteries, Literary Fiction, Crime Fiction

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction and Nonfiction

This Brooklyn-based outfit specializes in children’s books, as gorgeously illustrated as they’re richly imagined. But their catalogue goes far beyond the big red dogs and very hungry caterpillars you probably remember from your own childhood. That’s not to say that you won’t find any woodland critters cavorting in Enchanted Lion’s titles. But this indie publisher puts a premium on the “power of cultural exchange.” Enchanted Lion excels at putting out picture books set all over the world, many of them translated from languages like French and Japanese.

🔥 Hit title: Cry, Heart, But Never Break by Glenn Ringtved and Charlotte Pardi

⭐️ Best known for: Children's Books

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Full Manuscripts. View guidelines →

Publisher of: Fiction

Europa Editions' parent company, Edizione E/O, grew out of a failed venture by Italian couple Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzala : a bookstore where thinkers with opposing views could meet for peaceful dialogue. When the political discord proved too daunting for polite reading-room tête-à-têtes, the Ferris, now married, pivoted to publishing. Their American publishing house, Europa Editions, is one of the US’s top publishers of fiction in translation, and they’ve produced more than a few NYT bestsellers, including Elena Ferrante's celebrated Neapolitan Novels. (And yes, they've met the mysterious, pseudonymous author face to face.)

🔥 Hit title: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? No

What is an independent publisher?

An independent publisher is a publisher not affiliated with any big corporations or conglomerates — meaning they operate independently. Think of them as the small businesses of the publishing world: they’re like chic local boutiques compared to the Macy’s and Nordstroms of the Big 5. Indie presses also tend to be small presses, an industry term for publishers making less than $50 million annually.

Independent publishers vs. self-publishers

There’s plenty to ruminate on when it comes to the distinction between indie publishing and self-publishing, but independent publishers are quite different from self-publishers. In a nutshell, indie presses operate on a far smaller scale than the billion-dollar publishing juggernauts, but they still fall under the umbrella of traditional publishing.

Resources for submitting to independent publishers in 2024

Not all independent publishers take unagented submissions, but many of them do, allowing you to cut out the middleman and make your writerly dreams come true all on your own. 

Of course, to make this happen, you'll have to be your project's best advocate. That means writing the best book you can, of course, but you shouldn't stop there — you'll have to study your target press's submissions guidelines and let them guide your next move.

Will you need to craft a killer book proposal, or brush up on your querying technique? Either way, we've got you covered. To give you a push on your path to indie publisher stardom, we've compiled some resources for putting together the perfect submission.

Free online courses

Blog posts

Reedsy | Get Help Submitting Your MS | 2023-06

Need help submitting your manuscript?

Get a “query review” for expert advice on approaching agents and publishers.

Reedsy Marketplace UI

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Enter your email or get started with a social account: