Brother Mockingbird Publishing is a small independent press committed to discovering writers from the American South, but they are also open to good fiction, regardless of where the author is based. They recently celebrated their two year anniversary, so they are a new press.
They publish a wide range of genres including women’s fiction, historical fiction, romance, mystery (including thrillers and cozies), upmarket, thriller, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural, and young adult. They also publish children’s fiction but are currently not open to submissions of that genre through the end of 2020.
You can get a good feel of what they’ve published in the past by going here.
They used to have a detailed staff page, but they no longer do so.
The royalty rates they offer depend on the amount of editing the work requires but are generally within the 20-40% rate, of net, not gross.
They have distribution with Ingram, which is not ideal, but they do advertise and offer incentives for bookstores to carry their books, which is a good start. They do not have a sales team or marketing department.
The submission guidelines ask that you submit a query letter, synopsis, first chapter, and an author biography that includes relevant social media links. Everything should be in the body of the email. No attachments.
Brother Mockingbird has a three month turnaround time in terms of reading submissions. If you have not heard from them at that point, you are encouraged to query.
All edits to manuscripts should be compliant with the Chicago Manual of Style.
To learn more or to submit, go here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, The 2019 Guide to Manuscript Publishers, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The Authors Publish Guide to Children’s and Young Adult Publishing.
She occasionally teaches a course on manuscript publishing, as well as a course on publishing in literary journals.
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