Updated on April 21st, 2020 – They have closed to unsolicited submissions. We will update if this changes at any point, but I don’t think this is a temporary change.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is open to direct submissions. They are an imprint of Macmillan, one of the Big Five publishers.
They focus on publishing quality poetry, literary fiction, and history for adults, as well as books for children. They are open to direct submissions in all categories except children’s books.
I have read a lot of books published by FSG and they always publish quality literary work. Over the years, their authors have won numerous National Book Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, and twenty-two Nobel Prizes in literature.
They don’t publish anything that isn’t very literary, and it is rare that they will publish a debut book, but there are exceptions. If you want to get a better feel for what they are currently publishing you can visit their Coming Soon page here.
They do not publish any subgenres outside of literary fiction. So please do not submit this work.
They only accept mailed submissions. When you submit to them, include a cover letter describing your submission along with the first 50 pages of the manuscript. If you are submitting poems, they ask that you only submit 3-4 poems.
All authors must include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. They also do return manuscripts if you include the appropriately sized stamped envelope, which is a little unusual.
They try to reply to all submissions with three to five months.
To learn more, 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.