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DIRECTORY

Best Nonfiction Independent Publishers in 2025

Showing 33 indie publishers that match your search.

Publisher of: 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: Nonfiction

WTAW Press is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit publisher devoted to discovering and publishing enduring literary works.

⭐️ Best known for: Novels, Memoirs, Creative Nonfiction, Essays

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

Publisher of: Nonfiction

Founded in 1972, Coffee House Press has grown from tiny letterpress to internationally renowned nonprofit. They’ve managed to stay close to their roots, putting out the occasional small-batch, letterpress chapbooks, complete with hand-sewn spines. But their backlist of more traditional volumes is substantial and growing. These days, Coffee House best known for their boundary-pushing, genre-crossing novels and essay collections — many of which have won prestigious nominations, from the Pulitzer to the National Book Award.

🔥 Hit title: I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction, Memoir, Poetry Collections

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? Yes, in the form of Full Manuscripts. 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: Nonfiction

This indie publisher got its start because Ezra Pound didn’t believe in a certain Harvard undergrad’s future in poetry. James Laughlin, then a college sophomore, went to the legendary modernist for advice. And Pound, who had been critiquing his work all semester, urged him to give up writing and “do something useful” instead. Thus New Directions Publishing was born. Laughlin retained a love for verse, so the budding press’s first books were poetry anthologies and collections by the greats — including Pound. These days, New Directions boasts a rich collection of fiction and criticism as well, especially works in translation.

🔥 Hit title: The Emissary by Yoko Tawada and Margaret Mitsutani (translator)

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction, Poetry Collections

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? No

Publisher of: Nonfiction

The playful, punk-adjacent Microcosm Publishing considers itself the “most colorful, authentic, and empowering publishing house” in Portland's vibrant indie publishing scene. It’s a bold claim, but one borne out by the press’s DIY mindset, its centering of marginalized creators, and its exclusive use of recycled printing paper. Microcosm emerged as a zine distributor run out of founder Joe Biel’s bedroom, and it’s hung onto that sense of grit even after decades of expansion. Their strongest titles tend to be no-nonsense handbooks full of actionable instructions.

🔥 Hit title: Making Stuff and Doing Things by Kyle Bravo (editor)

⭐️ Best known for: How-To Guides

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

Publisher of: 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: Nonfiction

Married couple George and Marsha Braziller started publishing high quality, visually arresting art books in 1955 — an outgrowth of their passion for modern painting and the book clubs they hosted throughout the ‘40s. George, who won the trust of Nobel Prize Laureates like Claude Simone and Orhan Pamuk, passed away in 2017, aged 101. But the legendary press that bears his name remains in the hands of his two sons. These days, George Braziller has branched out beyond its art historical roots to publish widely in fiction and poetry.

🔥 Hit title: Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

⭐️ Best known for: History, Literary Fiction

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? No

Publisher of: 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: Nonfiction

Founded in 2002, Noemi Press operates out of Blacksburg, Virginia, where it publishes both new and established writers — especially women, queer people, and people of color. Their titles are often described as part something, part something else, and you can fill in the blanks to build all kinds of fascinating, extremely high-brow combos: say “autofiction” and “sequential critical engagement”, or “family gothic” and “queer historiography”. Even books that don’t have this genre mashup quality feel pieced together, in the best way, mixing forms and textures to produce writing that feels wholly new.

🔥 Hit title: Her 37th Year, An Index by Suzanne Scanlon

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction, Memoir

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

Publisher of: 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: Nonfiction

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 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: Nonfiction

This micro-press releases no more than four books a year. But their tightly curated list has earned them a reputation for producing fiction and nonfiction that’s as accessible as it is groundbreaking. Future Tense Books’ catalogue might be boundary-pushing, but this publisher’s aesthetic is more DIY than avant-garde. They're equally at home with wry short story collections and raw, unprententious memoirs that delve into darkness head-on.

🔥 Hit title: Excavation by Wendy C. Ortiz

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction, Memoirs

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? No

Publisher of: Nonfiction

This storied Canadian publisher has been running out of Toronto since 1967. In that time, it’s grown from a one-man operation to a North American indie powerhouse, publishing prominent authors like Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje. As it makes headway into its sixth decade of operation, House of Anansi remains as committed as ever to promoting Canadian literature, including French-Canadian books in translation, and work by First Nations authors.

🔥 Hit title: How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti

⭐️ Best known for: Memoirs, Literary Fiction

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

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