Young adult is one of my favorite genres to read now, even though when I was a young adult myself, I really struggled finding good books. These days the young adult genre is profitable, diverse, and covers a wide variety of genres, from science fiction to romance and everything in between.
A lot of young adult publishers are open to submissions without an agent. Not as many as romance or science fiction, but a great deal more than literary fiction (for example). Below is a list of all the publishers we have previously reviewed that are open to young adult manuscripts.
Some of these publishers exclusively publish young adult novels, others publish children’s books as well, while others are open to a wider variety of genres and age groups. Not all of the publishers are currently open to submissions but the majority of them are. If you click on the name of the publisher it will link to our full review of them. All full reviews contain links to the various publisher’s submission page.
The list is in no particular order.
Charlesbridge publishes high quality books for children and young adults with the goal of creating lifelong readers and lifelong learners. They have good distribution.
This Philadelphia based press publishes just 25 books a year in a whole range of genres, from children’s books to nonfiction to science fiction. Unlike most publishers that tackle a large range of topics, Quirk books has a clear marketing plan and to a certain degree their books have a cohesive feel, because they all are quirky.
They have published a wide variety of best sellers and they have excellent distribution. Some of their bestsellers include The Last Policeman, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
An ePublisher that is primarily focused on publishing romance, they are open to publishing young adult romance.
The books they publish tend to be on the younger end of the young adult genre (think thirteen year old readers primarily). They are an established and respected publisher.
Speaking Volumes is an independent publisher based out of Naples, Florida. They started out just publishing Audio books, but now they also publish eBooks and paperbacks. At their About Us page, you can learn more about the company and the current staff. Their books are widely available and they publish a number of established authors.
A large independent publisher based out of Illinois, they also have offices in Connecticut and New York. Source books was started in 1987 by Dominique Raccah. They also have several imprints all founded within the last decade. They started out publishing business books but then expanded to gift books.
They now publish fiction and nonfiction in a large variety of genres, with a particular focus on young adult books.
Blaze is a new print and electronic publisher focusing on publishing fiction books young adults. They seek to publish books in a wide variety of genres including fantasy, science fiction, and horror, as long as that book has heart. They want readers to finish their books feeling happy and uplifted.
They publish a wide variety of genres including young adult fiction but they are only interested in publishing work with an environmental or ecological focus.
This new press has been growing in terms of reputation and distribution. They publish a wide variety of genres including young adult.
Entangled Publishing is an independent publisher of adult and young adult romantic fiction. Since its first release in July 2011, Entangled has published more than 970 titles. This number includes 14 titles that have made it onto the New York Times Bestsellers list and 42 titles that have placed on the USA Today Bestsellers list.
This publisher of young adult mystery novels is an imprint of a respected mystery publisher. They do not accept submissions from outside of North America unfortunately.
Pajama Press is a publisher of books for children and young adults. They focus on publishing literary works. They publish books that fall into a wide range of categories including: picture books, board books for the very young, middle-grade novels, young adult novels, and non-fiction for all juvenile categories.
Triangle Square is an imprint of Seven Stories Press that focuses on publishing young adult novels and children’s books. Seven Stories Press is an independent publisher that is well respected and has been around for twenty years. Their books are distributed by Random House.
A multi genre eBook publisher based out of the UK with a young adult imprint.
BelleBooks was founded in 1999 by a number of writers of Southern Fiction. They focused on publishing works of southern fiction before creating the now substantial imprint BelleBridge, which is open to a wide variety of genres including, cozy mysteries, women’s fiction, romance, fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, horror, fantasy, young adult, mystery, suspense, and thrillers.
Persea Books is an independent book publisher based out of New York that was established in the 1970s. Since then they have gained a reputation for publishing thoughtful books in a variety of literary genres.
At this time they are particularly encouraging submissions to their growing young adult list in non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. These books are aimed at the educational market as well as literary readers.
Hotkey Books is an imprint of Bonnier Publishing which is part of the much larger international Bonnier a large media group. Hotkey Books is based in the UK. They publish books for kids and teens between the ages of 8-18. The cover art for these books is exceptional. They also have a great, easy to use website.
Alloy Entertainment is a large company that has been responsible for a number of successful books, including The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the Gossip Girl series. The books they publish tend to be aimed at a young female audience. They are not a traditional publisher, they are a book-packaging and a television production unit of Warner Bros.
Dial Books For Young Readers publishes hardcover books aimed at children of all ages, including young adults. They are an imprint of Penguin that accepts unsolicited submissions. The catch? They do not respond to unsolicited submissions unless they are interested in the book. That means don’t expect a rejection from Dial, personal or otherwise. If you have not heard from them in four months, they have rejected your work.
