Updated February 8th, 2024: They did not publish any books in 2023, and have yet to publish any books in 2024, so I’m not sure if they are still active.
Gibson House Press is an independent publisher that publishes 1-2 books a year. They have good covers, and a clear easy to navigate website. Although one of my impressions from the website is that they are equally focused on recruiting authors as they are recruiting readers. This is often not a good sign, and is unusual for a publisher that produces so few books a year. But part of why they might do that, is that their focus is rather niche, as they put it, “We publish excellent novels written by working musicians and musicians at heart.”
Many of the authors they work with are musicians like Junior Burke, but some like Amy Casey appear not to be, although music still seems to play a major role in the novel they’ve published by her, which has a playlist to go with it. They officially state, “We consider adult literary fiction by writers in any genre/subject matter, especially the work of those traditionally underrepresented in literary publishing,” but I probably would hold off submitting if music doesn’t play some sort of role in your fiction, or if you are not a musician. Please spend some time on their website with their catalog before considering submitting to see if your work is a good fit.
Some of their novels have sold well and gathered a fair number of reviews for small press books on Amazon (around 50). They are distributed by Publishers Group West (an imprint of Ingram that represents a number of well known publishers, and is much more focused on distribution than the overarching Ingram brand).
They ask that writers submit complete full-length novels that are between 50,000 and 80,000 words in length. Also submit a cover letter that includes a brief bio and a synopsis of your novel. If they are interested they will contact you in three months, if they have not contacted you within this period of time, assume rejection.
To learn more, visit their submission guidelines here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 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.
