Agape Editions started out as an imprint of Sundress Publishing. In 2017 it was announced that they would be becoming a sister press to Sundress Publications in this post. Since then any formal continued relationship between the two presses has been unclear. Agape’s masthead is here and it includes a number of established and active members of the literary community, which is always a nice sign.
Agape is a small press with varying imprints, and a literary journal, that cover a lot of territory. They have also published a lot of authors who are part of the larger literary community and have a track record of serious publications, particularly in terms of poetry. Agape is only open to submissions for certain imprints at certain times. On their main submissions page they make it clear which imprints are open and which ones are not. If you submit to an imprint that is not open, they will delete your submission unread.
At the time of writing this review they are open to submissions for two of their imprints, Haunted Doll House, their horror imprint, and Kumquat Books, their children’s book imprint.
In terms of Haunted Doll House they are seeking full length books (that they will publish in print editions). They are open to horror, mystery, dark sf/f, genre-resistant writing. They are currently accepting both fiction and memoir and say “We especially want authors who identify as female, femme, enby, LGBTQIA+, disabled, working-class, or authors of color to feel welcome to send us work.”
You can read their full submission details here, and please follow all their instructions carefully, including a 250 or fewer word synopsis in the body of the email along with a 100 or fewer words bio and the manuscript attached as a Word doc and PDF.
You can see the books Haunted Doll House has previously published here.
Kumquat Books has only published one book so far, which you can see here.
You can see Kumquat Books’ submission guidelines by going here and scrolling down, but the main focus is a query letter. Please follow their guidelines carefully.
Their website does contain a page dedicated to editing services provided by the “Creatrix & EIC” of Agape. This is what they say about it “Apotropaic Editing Services is owned by Agape Editions, but constitutes and is run as a separate branch of the organization (for clarity: it can be considered a separate brand from the publishing wing, though both are owned by the same parent company).” Some of the testimonials on that page are by authors who are published by Agape. In the unlikely situation that you are re-directed from general submissions to their editorial services, please send us an email at support@authorspublish.com.
Like most micropresses they don’t seem to have established distribution, but the books they publish are widely available online.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 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.
