Type Eighteen Books was founded by Mary Vensel White. She says in the About Us section of the site: “I founded Type Eighteen Books as a home for fiction that demonstrates a love of language and a mastery of its tools, stories with empathy and a striving for understanding, and attention to what my favorite author, Kent Haruf, called the “precious ordinary.” The most powerful stories are the ones that make readers feel seen, that cause them to say, “I have also felt that way.” Often, these types of books are labeled literary fiction but sometimes they are labeled something else. We’d also like to be a home for “something else” books—stories that have been neglected by traditional publishers because of experimentations with form, intent, or…something else.”
On the bottom of the same about us page they also have a note that says, “How do we define “literary?” In short, writing that demonstrates excellence in craft and strikes a chord of universal emotion, empathy, or understanding.”
Type Eighteen Books started actively publishing work in 2023, so it is still a relatively new press. You can see their full staff listing here. They are a member of the CLMP, IBPA, and WPN. In my experience, unfortunately all of these organizations have members that are not following the standards the larger organization claims to have, and so I do not see these memberships as a good sign, or a bad one.
Mary Vensel White, the founder of Type Eighteen Books, has also published a number of books through the press. There are three things that set Type Eighteen Books apart from a lot of the other presses that self-publish their editors’ work. The first is that Mary Vensel White’s first book, The Quality of Wood, was published by an imprint of Harper Collins. The second is that most of the staff of the press are not also publishing their work through the press. Thirdly, there’s a clear and cohesive mission and focus for Type Eighteen Books, that I share in the opening paragraph.
You can get a good feel for what they have published so far, by going here. Spend some time with this catalog before considering submitting. While they say they are open to literary YA and literary adult fiction, they have only published one work of YA so far and it was by Mary Vensel White. They have published a number of authors in terms of novellas and adult fiction.
The books they’ve published so far have genre-appropriate covers. Most are pretty good actually. The most reviews any of the books have received is in the 120+ range, but most of the books they’ve published so far have received less then 50 ratings or reviews on Goodreads. I do not think they have any distribution beyond Ingram (but am happy to be informed otherwise).
Their submission guidelines are here, and are not very detailed. They previously announced submissions via FB only, but seem to have switched over to their website now.
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.
