BHC Press was founded in 2016 as a hybrid publisher that offered some traditional contracts, but mostly published books along a hybrid model, meaning that authors contributed money towards the publication of their book. In March of 2020 they fully eliminated hybrid publishing and transitioned fully towards being a traditional publisher (Authors Publish only reviews traditional publishers). I am not sure when the transition was complete but when I reached out to them in July, they said they no that authors no longer financially contribute towards the publication of their book in any way, although as with most publishers, they may end up putting in their own funds towards promoting the book, that is a personal choice, and that money does not go towards the publishers.
That being said, if you end up working with them or approaching them, and they ask for money, please do not give it to them, and reach out to us at support@authorspublish.com
For most of the reviews I do of presses, I do not have direct contact with the editors, to remove bias. In this case I had to reach out to the editors in order to verify that they had truly moved away from a hybrid platform.
BHC publishes young adult and adult fiction in most genres. They have published many debut books. They publish 16-20 books a year. All books are published in print and eBook formats, and they are starting to release more audiobook versions as well. You can get a feel for what they publish here. Their covers are generally well-designed and genre-appropriate.
They do not publish poetry, children’s picture books, middle grade, nonfiction, previously published, or self-published works. They do not offer advances. I do not know their exact royalty rates, but have heard they are higher than most independent publishers.
Over 20 of their books have been on the B&N’s online bestseller list, with three hitting #1. They actively promote the books they publish by attending book shows and local festivals, as well as nominating their books for awards. They also offer all their titles on NetGalley for digital ARC distribution, and submit their titles to all major trade magazines. I will say that in the last post on this page here, an author said “Avoid. If you are looking for mediocre (at best) editing and a lot of empty marketing promises, then by all means, go for it.”
There is a thread about them in the water cooler that discloses a fair amount of information that makes me think any author should approach them with caution. You can read the full thread here, some of it is valid only before the conversion to hybrid, but there is additional complaints of their behaviour recently, although they do not go into details.
To submit send a query letter, synopsis, and the first six chapters of a manuscript via their submission form. They will not read any work that does not follow these guidelines. Allow 10-12 weeks for them to review your submissions, if they haven’t responded within this time frame, please assume rejection. If they are interested they will email you a request to see the full manuscript.
To learn more about their submission guidelines, go here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2021 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.
