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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

This small, but mighty, indie press prides itself on publishing “strange and beautiful” work, both fiction and nonfiction. The resulting catalogue tends to send readers on a rollercoaster ride, jumping from chortling absurdity to heartbreaking tragedy, from ice-cold beer to Armageddon. And that’s within a single book! Common themes that cut across titles include music, magical realist hijinks, and darkly funny takes on the end of the world. No matter what the genre, Featherproof titles make their readers laugh — and think.

🔥 Hit title: The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? No

Publisher of: Nonfiction

Catapult Books may have been founded in 2015, but they’ve made a huge impact on the literary scene in just a few years. In fact, they’ve made such a big splash that they managed to acquire an older indie publisher, Counterpoint Press, back in 2016. Post-merger, Catapult’s small, impeccably curated catalog — mostly memoir and literary fiction — continues to exemplify quality over quantity.

🔥 Hit title: All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

⭐️ Best known for: Literary Fiction, Memoir

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? No

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 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 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 →

Publisher of: Nonfiction

Independent presses tend to focus on fiction and poetry, but Feral House breaks the mold. Look through their list of publishing topics, and you’ll see post-apocalyptic survival guides under Self-Reliance and gutsy exposés of government corruption under Realpolitik. Needless to say, this isn’t the kind of small press that publishes highbrow short story collections or thoughtful, MFA-inflected novels. Their countercultural sensibility lends itself instead to bold nonfiction (or, occasionally, historical fiction) by unabashed firebrands.

🔥 Hit title: Nightmare of Ecstasy by Rudolph Grey

⭐️ Best known for: Biography, How-To Guides, Journalism

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

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 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

McSweeney’s is better known for their humor website, which features snort-inducing titles like “I Regret to Inform You That My Wedding to Captain Von Trapp Has Been Canceled” and “Signs You May Be a Female Character in a Work of Historical Fiction.” But this San Francisco-based indie publisher also runs a small — yet vibrant — books division. Their titles range from brainy, irreverent humor in the vein of their Internet Tendency to more serious fare: politically incisive nonfiction with a progressive bent.

🔥 Hit title: Indelible in the Hippocampus by Shelly Oria (editor)

⭐️ Best known for: Humor, Memoir

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

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

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

Tin House’s legendary literary magazine may have shuttered its doors 2019, but their book publishing program is still going strong. Originally launched as an Bloomsbury imprint, Tin House Books spun off into an indie publisher in 2005. They release around 12 books a year often from first-time authors. Tin House Books publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and they have a penchant for lush, character-driven contemporary novels, playful essay collections, and memoirs that delve into complex relationships with uncompromising insight.

🔥 Hit title: Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl by Jeannie Vanasco

⭐️ Best known for: Essay Collections, Literary Fiction, Memoirs

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? No

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

LA-based Rare Bird Books has a strong affinity for edgy, whip-smart titles on sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll: think candid sex worker memoirs and deep dives into the London music scene of the ‘70s. Besides nonfiction, Rare Bird widely publishes a number of genres over its various imprints. California Coldblood, for instance, presides over the press’s speculative fiction titles, while Barnacle Books takes care of crime fiction. As a whole, their titles are both progressive and compulsively readable, no matter if it’s PG-friendly or NSFW.

🔥 Hit title: Camgirl by Isa Mazzei

⭐️ Best known for: Memoir, Mysteries, Science Fiction & Fantasy

💌 Accepts unagented submissions? No

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