UPDATED: They appear to be no longer open to unagented submissions.

St Martin’s Press is an imprint of Macmillan, one of the big 5 publishers. SMP Swerve is the digital first romance publishing imprint of St Martin’s.

‘Digital first’ is a term applied to publishers and imprints that initially publish eBooks and then depending on the success of the book, or sometimes other factors stated in advance by the publisher, a print version of the book is released.

One of the advantages of publishing a digital first book with a major publisher is that it is a great way to get a foot in the door. They also offer an experienced marketing team to help promote your book, and other perks such as excellent copy editing.

SMP Swerve is open to all sub-genres of romance. The length of your manuscript must be between 25 thousand and 100 thousand words. All books must end happily ever after, or, if the book is part of a series, happily for now.

Heat level (how explicit the romance in your book is) and other factors vary from category to category, so review all the categories and their guidelines before submitting. They are seeking diverse authors and characters, including LGBTQ.

They respond to most submissions within 12 weeks. So wait at least that long before querying them about the state of your manuscript.

SMP Swerve uses Submittible to handle all of their submissions. They accept work that has been previously published or self published as long as you retain all rights to it.

To learn more please visit their website here.