One of my favorite genres to read now is young adult (YA) fiction, even though when I was a teenager, I struggled to find good books. These days the YA genre is profitable, diverse, and covers a wide variety of genres, from science fiction to romance and everything in between. A lot of YA publishers are open to submissions without an agent. Some of these publishers exclusively publish YA 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 or to their website. All our full reviews contain links to the various publishers’ submission pages. The list is in no particular order.
Boroughs Publishing Group
Boroughs Publishing Group is an e-publisher that focuses on publishing romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Within the romance genre they are interested in publishing a large number of sub genres including contemporary romance, young adult, historical fiction, paranormal, urban fantasy, multicultural, erotic, thrillers, and fantasy novels.
Jolly Fish Press
Jolly Fish Press was started in 2012. They are based out of Provo, Utah. Jolly Fish has a major distributor and a large staff for a relatively new press. Their authors have won numerous awards. They publish middle grade and young adult fiction. They are closed to submissions at the time of this update.
Shadow Mountain
Shadow Mountain is an imprint of Deseret Book. Both publishers are Mormon, but Deseret Book focuses more on producing faith-based content. Shadow Mountain publishes primarily fiction and they have published a number of New York Times bestselling books. Because the company is Mormon run, books have to be approved by in-house censors in order to be published. They are very firm about publishing “clean books only”. However the authors need not be Mormon. They only have four short reading periods a year.
Charlesbridge Publishing
Charlesbridge publishes high quality books for children and young adults with the goal of creating lifelong readers and lifelong learners. They are open to submissions of fiction and non fiction for young adults. They have good distribution.
Holiday House
They are an established and respected publisher that used to focus more on the younger end of the young adult spectrum (13-14), and now publish work for older teens as well.
Arsenal Pulp Press
Arsenal Pulp Press is a Canadian small press based out of Vancouver. They have won the Jim Douglas Publisher of the Year Award (from the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia), and they have been a finalist for Small Press Publisher of the Year (awarded by the Canadian Booksellers Association) five times. They have good distribution in Canada and on the West Coast. I’ve seen a number of their books in stores in the Pacific Northwest. They also regularly host and promote events for their authors, and that is a good sign as well.
CamCat Books
CamCat Books is a small independent publisher that was founded in 2019. Since then they have acquired and published a large number of novels, both through unsolicited submissions and agents. They only consider young adult fiction anything featuring a character that is 16 or older, which is an unusual distinction to make.
Brother Mockingbird Publishing
This small press publishes a range of genres including YA.
Mischief
Mischief is the YA imprint of the romance publisher Entangled Publishing, that focuses on younger YA readers. They focus on publishing general YA for readers 13 and up, with fantasy, sci-fi, horror, contemporary, thriller, with sweet romantic elements. Work they publish is between 80 and 100k in length. These books can contain romantic themes and even occasional strong language and action and conflict, but nothing is overly graphic.
Mayhem
Is the YA imprint of the romance publisher Entangled Publishing, that focuses on older readers. They focus on publishing YA for readers 16 and older fantasy, sci-fi, horror, contemporary, thriller, with romantic elements. Work is between 90 and 120k in length. These books generally feature stronger language, more intense violence, and mature romantic themes.
Flux
Flux is an imprint of North Star Editions that publishes exclusively young adult fiction. Their motto is “Where Young Adult is a Point of View, not a Reading Level”. Most of the books they publish focus on the older end of the young adult market. They publish edgier, darker stuff than other young adult publishers. They publish all sub genres of young adult, from realistic life stories to sci fi. They are established, have good distribution, and have published many books that have sold well. They are closed to submissions at the time of this update.
Tiny Fox Press
They publish primarily science fiction, fantasy books, as well as YA. They offer an advance and they say they offer competitive royalties, but the details are sparse and mentioned here. They don’t mention a distributor, so I assume if they have one it is Ingram.
Sky Pony Press
Sky Pony is a division of Skyhorse Publishing (please read our review of the press as a whole, before considering submissions). This division focuses on publishing work for children, as well as YA.
Epic
Epic focuses on publishing Young Adult (YA) and New Adult (NA) Romance. They are part of Entwined Publishing, which used to be called The Totally Entwined Group. You can learn more about Entwined Publishing here.
JMS Books
JMS Books is a small electronic press that focuses on publishing LGBTQ+ erotic romance, romance, and young adult romance. They do not publish heterosexual romance at all.
The O’Brien Press
The O’Brien Press is an established and respected publisher that is based in Ireland. They favour Irish voices, but are open to international submissions. They publish nonfiction for adults, and fiction and nonfiction for children and young adults.
Pan Macmillan Australia
Pan Macmillan Australia is open to direct submissions. They are the Austalian imprint of Macmillian, one of the big five publishers. This is the only way to submit to Macmillan directly. They have excellent distribution in Australia. They accept YA submissions.
Deep Hearts YA
Deep Hearts YA is a new publisher of fiction for young adults. They focus on publishing LBGTQ+ stories, in all genres and sub-genres, including aro and ace lead characters. They are primary a romance publisher, but romance does not have to be the main focus of the manuscript if self-empowerment or self-realization plays a central role.
Graveside Press
Graveside Press is the Horror Imprint of Paper Angel Press, which you can learn more about here. They have an imprint currently open to submissions that they call GRADEside, which focuses on horror for younger readers including middle grade readers and young adults.
Ylva Publishing
Ylva Publishing is the home of lesbian fiction and fiction about women-loving-women, and not surprisingly given the context, they only publish women. They mainly publish romance genre, but they are open to other genres, including well researched historical fiction, crime, and young adult. They will reopen to submissions in May 2025.
Hashtag Press
Hashtag Press was established in the UK in 2016 by Abiola Bello and Helen Lewis. They focus on publishing “commercial fiction books for young people that are plot driven with relatable, inspiring characters and great friendships”. They are currently only considering unagented work in the Young Adult (YA) genre, although they publish a wide range of books for younger readers. You can get a feel for what they publish here. They very much prioritize stories about characters from underrepresented backgrounds and by authors from underrepresented backgrounds, and they are not interested in publishing a book that isn’t diverse. We share their definition of reverse in our review. Their next reading period starts July 1st 2025 and goes to July 31st. It is for YA and Children’s books.
Publishers Only Open to Submissions from Historically Underrepresented Authors
Heartdrum
An imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books, which is edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, and is in partnership with We Need Diverse Books. Native and First Nations writers and writer-illustrators are welcome to query her directly via a form on her website. Native and First Nations illustrators are also invited to reach out. They publish YA and children’s books.
Tundra Books, Puffin Canada, Penguin Teen Canada
These children and teen focused Canadian imprints are open to direct submissions by underrepresented authors and illustrators only. Authors need not be Canadian.
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.
