Updated: March 7th, 2024: They are no longer accepting submissions and appear to have to stopped publishing new work, at least for the time being.
Felony & Mayhem is a print mystery book publisher founded in 2005, with fairly good distribution in brick and mortar bookstores. They initially focused only on re-issuing books that had fallen out of print, releasing books in paperback that only had hardback editions, and publishing books that had only been published outside of the US. Although that remains the bulk of their business they opened to general submissions in 2011. They now accept submissions from authors with or without an agent, or previous publishing experience.
The company is based out of Greenwich Village in New York City. They like to publish work that leans more towards literature, but is still a mystery. They prefer work that has some sort of cultural aspect to it. For example a plot that involved a murder set in academia, or the art world, would appeal to their general publishing sensibilities. They are also particularly interested in mysteries set in other countries. They often publish more than one book by the same author and they are not opposed to publishing a series.
Manuscripts submitted to them must be at least 75,000 words in length. All work must be submitted electronically. They prefer the work to to be submitted as a .doc or .docx attachment. They request that all you submit is “A brief synopsis, and a representative chapter, which may but need not be the first chapter. In writing the synopsis, please confine yourself to a maximum of four SHORT paragraphs: The purpose here is to offer a rough outline of the story.”
Only include information about yourself if it is relevant to the story. Say the story is about an undertaker turned detective, and you were an undertaker turned detective fiction writer, that information would be relevant to them. Do not include information that does not pertain to the story or your experience writing.
To learn more visit their website here or their submission guidelines here.
