Updated April 20, 2018
Young adult is one of my favorite genres to read, even though when I was a young adult I struggled to find good YA 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 in the romance genre, 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.
Page Street Publishing is a publisher of full color, mostly hardcover, gift books, cookbooks, and craft-books. They have recently started publishing young adult fiction. They have excellent distribution.
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.
Charlesbridge publishes high quality books for children and young adults with the goal of creating lifelong readers and lifelong learners. They have good distribution.
Clean Teen Publishing is a small publisher started a number of years ago. They publish print and electronic versions of books. All of the books they publish are aimed at teens. Their selling point, and the reason they are named what they are, is that all books come with a really clear rating system, that they refer to as content disclosure. This is an unusual concept, and while I can see how it would appeal to parents, I am not sure how attractive it would be to most teenagers.
Sleeping Bear Press is a well regarded publisher of board books, picture books, middle grade readers, and young adult fiction. They offer advances to some authors. They have good regional distribution in the Midwest and ok distribution in North America. Their books have won a wide variety of awards, all of them are listed here.
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.
Diversion Books was started by Scott Waxman of Waxman Literary Agency. They publish a wide variety of fiction and non fiction genres including young adult.
Cedar Fort is a print and electronic publisher based out of Salt Lake City. They are the second largest publisher in Utah. They publish over 150 books a year. Their books cover a wide range of topics, from cookbooks to juvenile fiction. They are a Mormon press, but they publish books by non Mormans.
An ePublisher primarily focused on publishing romance, they are open to publishing young adult romance.
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 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.
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.
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.
Filles Vertes Publishing was founded in 2016. It is a new publisher with only a few books under their belt and a few forthcoming books as well. They have print and electronic versions of all their books. They accept submissions of middle grade readers, young adult books, adult fiction, and adult fiction in all genres, which is a broad spectrum to publish.
Clean Teen Publishing is a small publisher started a number of years ago. They publish print and electronic versions of books. All of the books they publish are aimed at teens. Their selling point, and the reason they are named what they are, is that all books come with a really clear rating system, that they refer to as content disclosure.
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.
Albert Whitman & Company has been around since 1919. I grew up reading a series the best-known series that they have published The Boxcar Children. Over the past few years they have started to focus on publishing a larger number of books each year. Their goal is to be publishing 150 new books a year by 2020.
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.
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.
