Memoir publishers that don’t require an agent to submit are few and far between. However, there are still options out there. Some are old and respected, others are new and still figuring things out.
Not all the publishers on this list are currently open to submissions, but most are.
Arcade Publishing
Arcade Publishing is an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, a large independent publisher with a number of imprints. Arcade publishes fiction and nonfiction, including memoir.
Coffeetown Press
Coffeetown Press is a literary and nonfiction imprint owned by Epicenter Press. They primarily publish nonfiction, as well as memoir, literary fiction, and historical fiction.
Three Rooms Press
Three Rooms Press is an independent press that is inspired by “Dada, Punk, and Passion”. They were founded in 1994. They have good distribution. As one can see by their tagline, they have a very clear sense of what they like and what they are interested in publishing. The memoirs they publish are mostly focused on punk rock.
Monkfish
Monkfish is an independent press that focuses on publishing religious, spiritual, and literary books from a diverse range of perspectives. They have published memoirs, fiction, scholarly works, and wisdom literature, which you can get a better feel for by downloading the catalog here.
Persea Books
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, including memoir. They are closed to prose submissions at this time.
Schaffner Press
Schaffner is an established press with distribution through IPG. They publish literary fiction, short fiction collections, and crime fiction. They also publish a wide variety of nonfiction including memoir, autobiography, biography, journalistic expose or narrative, true crime, art, culture, pop culture, world history, current events, science, and music.
Arsenal Pulp Press
This Canadian based press is open to direct submissions of memoir, as well as a variety of other genres. They have separate guidelines for Canadians and those based abroad, so please read carefully.
Clash Books
Clash Books started in 2015, they also publish Clash Magazine. They publish fiction, nonfiction (including memoir, mostly in terms of essay collections), and poetry. They are currently closed to submissions, and are reopening January 1st, 2025.
Vine Leaves Press
Vine Leaves Press is an international press with staff in the United States, Germany, Greece, England, and beyond. They were founded in 2011 as a literary journal and started publishing vignette collections in 2014. Vine Leaves Press publishes books in a variety of genres including memoirs, coming of age, literary and multi-genre novels, poetry and short story collections, and reference books. They are currently closed to submissions, but are scheduled to reopen in December 2024.
Pan Macmillan Australia
Pan Macmillan Australia is open to direct submissions. They are the Australian imprint of Macmillan, one of the big five publishers. This is the only way to submit to Macmillan directly. They have excellent distribution in Australia. They publish commercial fiction including women’s fiction, romance, thriller, crime, historical, humor, paranormal, fantasy, as well as literary fiction and nonfiction, children’s and young adult books, and commercial nonfiction ranging from memoir to diet.
Thread
Thread is a new nonfiction imprint from Bookouture which is owned by Hachette. Thread was launched in March 2020. Thread focuses on a wide range of topics including self-development, personal finance, parenting, and as they phrase it, “inspirational memoir”.
Roxane Gay Books
Roxane Gay Books is a new imprint of Grove Atlantic. Roxane Gay has written about this new imprint here. Roxane Gay is the award-winning and bestselling author of a number of books including Hunger and Bad Feminist. This new imprint will publish non fiction, memoir, novels, and short story collections. They close to submissions for this open reading period on October 16th, 2024.
Tin House
Tin House is an established and respected small press. They now have three weekend long submission windows a year, each focused on a different genre, including nonfiction. They plan to relaunch their open reading periods in 2025, but have yet to release a schedule.
Blair
Blair is a nonprofit press combining the lists of Carolina Wren Press and John F. Blair, Publisher. To submit unsolicited fiction, memoir, or poetry, you must do so through their contests. They have historically been free with an option to donate. They have very limited submission windows.
Blackwater Press
Blackwater Press is a new small press based in West Virginia, with an international team of editors. They publish fiction, nonfiction, essay, short story collection, novella and memoir manuscripts. They are not interested in erotica or genre fiction. They are currently closed to submissions.
ECW Press
ECW Press is an established Canadian publisher. They accept poetry, fiction, and nonfiction submissions from Canadians. They only accept nonfiction submissions from international submitters. I cannot stress this enough – if you are not a Canadian, you can only submit nonfiction to them. Memoir is considered under the nonfiction umbrella.
Feral House
Feral House is a small independent publisher based in Port Townsend, Washington state. They were founded in 1989 by Adam Parfrey who has since passed away. They publish unique and unusual nonfiction and they are particularly interested in documenting cultural movements. They publish memoirs, biographies, and many other works of nonfiction including history not found in text books, nonfiction for children, and work focused on mysticism and the occult.
Mad Creek Books
Mad Creek Books is the literary trade imprint of The Ohio State University Press. With a mission to foster creativity, innovate, and illuminate, Mad Creek Books champions diverse and creative literary nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Many of their imprints are open to memoir, including their Machete imprint. Please note that some imprints charge to submit. We are not encouraging you to submit to those imprints.
Apollo Publishers
Apollo Publishers was founded in 2016 and published their first books in 2018. Apollo Publishers focuses on publishing “timely and topical nonfiction for adult trade audiences.” Mostly, they focus on narrative nonfiction, including memoir.
Baobab Press
Baobab Press is a small press that publishes a wide variety of material. Full disclaimer, even before we get into the review proper, they charge for submissions in some genres currently, this includes adult fiction and poetry manuscripts. As part of our guiding principles we don’t cover presses that charge overall, but as they are open to free unagented submissions in a variety of other genres including memoir, children’s books, and comics (including cartoons and graphic narratives), they do qualify to be listed with us.
University of Texas Press
They primarily publish nonfiction in a wide variety of areas but are also open to a limited number of edited collections and memoir projects.
Zibby Books
Zibby Books was founded by Zibby Owens, an established book influencer, as part of her company Aibby Media. You can read more about her launch of Zibby Books, here, and here.They primarily publish fiction and memoir and they are open to agented and unagented submissions. You can see all the books they’ve published so far, here, to get a feel for what they are interested in.
Library Tales Publishing
Library Tales Publishing was founded in 2011. They describe themselves as “a distinguished independent publishing house, renowned for publishing, marketing, and distributing a wide spectrum of books, spanning self-help, memoirs, and niche fiction, penned by skilled and creative authors.”
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2024 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.
