Updated July 31st, 2024. While their website is still active they don’t appear to be actively publishing or promoting books anymore. I would not submit.
Victory Belt Publishing is distributed by Penguin Random House, and is one of the biggest publishers in terms of the Ketogenic and Paleo diets, and have published a number of bestselling cook books in those spaces, including Against All Grain by Danielle Walker. They’ve also published a lot of other health and wellness books, some directly related to diet, others to fitness. You can get a good feel for what they publish here. They describe their mission as “Delivering cutting-edge resources that empower people to make healthy changes in their lives”. They were founded in 2006 by New York Times bestselling author Erich Krauss.
As far as I can tell they are a traditional press, and they are very much focused on selling books rather than recruiting authors. They’ve also published a number of bestselling books. Some of the language on their site directed at authors is language I associate with vanity presses, for example, the emphasis placed on partnership with authors. In this situation I do think they use this language because they are a vanity press, but because they largely publish authors that already have a foothold in the health and wellness space.
Victory Belt only accepts book proposals in PDF formats and they only respond to submissions they are interested in.
They ask that in the proposal you include “a Table of Contents, a sample of the material (10-20 of the most compelling pages, 5-10 recipes, photos/graphs/charts/illustrations, a sample chapter, etc) and the unique selling proposition of your title. In addition, provide a letter that details the concept of your book, the intended size/scope, your target readership, and your personal website/blog and social media channels.”
To learn more, or to submit if you feel like you and your work is a good fit, go here and 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.
