Wildhouse Press (WHP) is a small press based in Boston, that started actively publishing work in 2021. Their tagline is “Adventurous Spirituality – for unconventional people.” According to the website the press was founded by Wesley J. Wildman.
They currently have published seven works of nonfiction, and one work of fiction, and have clear plans to expand into poetry, although please note that their first poetry chapbook contest has a fee attached. None of their other imprints charge a fee at this time and it is not unusual to charge for contests.
Because they are a new press, and lean towards nonfiction, there are a couple of things on the site that are a little unusual, and might qualify as orange flags.
The first is the services section. To be clear they are not actually offering “editing services” at a cost here – which many publishers do, but they are making it clear that they don’t seem to know that the services section usually consists of on a publisher’s website. They actually make it very clear in this section that they are a traditional press and authors are paid varying amounts depending on how much help they need.
The refer to an author writing their own work as the conventional acquisitions channel. If an author needs to partner with an editor at WHP they call this the partnership acquisition channel. Both options involve royalties. This is what they have to say about royalties — “For the conventional acquisitions channel, royalties are set at 15% of net revenue on each print copy sold and 30% of net revenue on each e-copy and audiobook sold. For the partnership acquisitions channel, which is much more expensive for WHP, author royalties are set at 5% of net revenue on each print copy sold and 20% of net revenue on each e-copy and audiobook sold.”
To be clear, off net is not ideal, but is pretty standard for small presses.
Also at the bottom of the Services page there is a little note that says this — “WHP helps authors embarking publishing journeys by curating information about the highest quality services available. For queries about any additional help you need, please contact us using the form on the contact page or by emailing your WHP contact. We can point you in the right direction.” And this is a little unusual.
You can get a good feel for what they publish here.
One of the other warning signs is that their onsite store is broken at the time of updating. But there are many other ways to buy their books and they have links to that.
Generally, though the signs are good. They have an extensive staff page. Their covers are good. Their submission guidelines are clear. All submissions must be made through Submittable.
To learn more, you can go here. Please respect their submission guidelines.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2022 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.
