Finch Books is part of the Totally Entwined Group which you can read more about here. The Finch imprint was established long after the original review, which is why I’m focusing on it alone here. Also while the other imprints focus on an adult readership, Finch is focused on Young Adult and New Adult Romance.
It’s important to note, that as of April 2023, there was an author on the Water Cooler, that cited major issues with regaining rights from Totally Entwined Group. You can read that post here. There have been no updates since then. It’s hard to put too much weight into one post in an anonymous forum, especially because other authors have shared good experiences there, but it very much something to keep in mind.
Unlike other presses they don’t pay off of net or gross in terms of royalty but of SRP (Standard Retail Price. They say “we pay a royalty rate of 40% of the SRP for eBooks, 30% for audio and 10% for print, based on our standard four year contract. Our contracts are for electronic, print, subsidiary rights and worldwide territories.”
They are currently open to work that is between 10 and 100k words, and they are considering series and series. When you submit to them via email you must include the words Finish Book Submissions in the subject line. They currently have open calls for YA Paranormal Academy, YA Royal Romance, Paranormal Vampires & Wereshifters, and Action & Adventure. You can read the details about all their current calls here. To get a feel for books they’ve already published, go here.
For me the biggest orange flag on the site is the section calling for free stories submission. Finch Books is active on Kindle Universe, and I assume that’s part of why the royalties are off standard retail price rather than net or gross and that for longer work under contract that might even benefit the author. But if a story is given away and planned to be given away from the start, how is the author paid via royalties? It sounds like they aren’t actually, based on the little they share in that section. Now authors aren’t paid for most literary journals and just submit to help support their career, and it is implied that free stories should be submitted by authors already working with Finch, but it is confusing. In any case it’s clearly not a requirement for submitting to them, but it still very much seemed like something potential authors should be aware of.
To learn more or submit, go here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2024 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.
