Updated September 26th, 2024: We have received first hand reports, and also seen posts here, about the editor requesting full manuscripts, and then responding very late, or not all, to the full. Please take that is consideration.
The Story Plant was founded in 2008 by two editors with industry experience, Lou Aronica and Peter Miller. In 2013 they were acquired by Studio Digital CT, LLC, a limited liability company headed by Lou Aronica. It is now run by Aronica and Mitchell Maxwell.
The Story Plant focuses on publishing commercial fiction. They have published a number of USA bestsellers and they cover a whole range of genres, from romance to sci-fi, to mainstream fiction. The covers also very in terms of quality. Some are very well done, while others struggle. To get a feel for their catalogue go here. Authors do seem to work with them repeatedly, which is generally a good sign. It is important to note that The Story Plant has published Maxwell’s (one of the editor’s) work.
They are distributed by the National Book Network.
There are a number of articles about the press, and you can read them here, here, and here.
Queries should be made via email, and you can learn more about that here. Please only submit if you think your work is a good fit.
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.
You can follow her on Facebook here.
