Updated July 23rd, 2024

Unnamed Press is an independent publisher of literary fiction and nonfiction, based in Los Angeles and founded in 2014. They have excellent distribution, their books have been reviewed in most major publications, and they know how to promote the books they publish.

The books they publish focus on challenging conventions and assumptions. They’ve published a number of well-known prize winning authors and their books have been nominated for major awards. The covers for their books are excellent.

Unnamed is the kind of press that publishes a very specific kind of book, both in terms of fiction and nonfiction. Many of the books they publish have ties to Los Angeles, for example. The best way to get a feel for what they publish is to thoroughly browse their catalog, and perhaps even buy a book, if one seems along the same lines as yours.

Unnamed Press recently created a new imprint Smith & Taylor Classics. This imprint will be helmed by acquiring editors Allison Miriam Woodnutt (née Smith) and Brandon Taylor, the award-winning author of Real Life, Filthy Animals, and The Late Americans. You can learn more about this imprint here. For the time being at least this imprint is focused only on open-domain reissues.

Authors must query with a letter first before proceeding. If they are not interested in your submission, they will not respond. If you have not heard from them in two months, assume rejection.

To learn more about submitting to them go here.

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.