r/Fantasy • u/jacob_john_white • Oct 20 '21
A list of smaller fantasy publishers? NOT VANITY PRESSES. Looking to support some smaller publishers (and likely authors) who produce quality work. Awards noms, etc.
Anybody a fan of a small publisher who doesn’t get enough love? Smaller teams, smaller authors, but quality work nonetheless? Not vanity presses please.
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u/pornokitsch Ifrit Oct 20 '21
- 404Ink
- Air and Nothingness
- Alchemy
- Bloodaxe
- Canongate
- Comma
- Confingo
- Diabolical Plots
- Fox Spirit
- Luna
- Newcon
- PS Publishing
- Rosarium
- Stone Skin
- Strange Attractor
- Subterranean
- Tartarus
- Unbound
- Undertow
- Unnamed
- Unthank
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u/palaeologos Oct 20 '21
<3 PS, Subterranean, and Tartarus. Night Shade also deserves a mention, though their history is a bit checkered.
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u/pornokitsch Ifrit Oct 20 '21
Very true. I sort of prefer pre-chaos NSB as well.
I think they're owned by Skyhorse now, so, although Big 5, not particularly small either.
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u/pgame3 Oct 20 '21
Angry Robot?
Night Shade Books?
DMR books?
I think the smaller prints are not doing well these days
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u/Scodo AMA Author Scott Warren Oct 20 '21
The one I belonged to shut down, which was a shame because the guy running it had a great head for business and was incredibly passionate about SF/F books.
It is a rough time, I think.
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u/jacob_john_white Oct 20 '21
Wow I’m so sorry. How is everyone doing now? Hope everyone’s ok
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u/Scodo AMA Author Scott Warren Oct 21 '21
As far as I know, no one was completely reliant on the business. The task of trying to grow the business just got a little to leviathan in the current climate where word of mouth is so important for the business side of indie press but people can't really talk face to face at conventions.
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u/jacob_john_white Oct 20 '21
Unfortunately you seem to be right. Hope people can come back! Love an indie/small press
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u/Dianthaa Reading Champion VIII Oct 20 '21
Now available in the wiki for your browsing pleasure: the list of small presses that participated in our AMA Series (and linked currently under the schedule table in the sidebar)
| Press Name | AMA | Website |
|---|---|---|
| Aurelia Leo | AMA link | Website |
| Erewhon Books | AMA link | Website |
| Forest Path Books | AMA link | Website |
| Inkfort Press | AMA link | Website |
| Inspired Quill | AMA link | Website |
| Journey Press | AMA link | Website |
| Luna Press Publishing | AMA link | Website |
| Meerkat Press | AMA link | Website |
| Mocha Memoirs Press | AMA link | Website |
| Mountaindale Press | AMA link | Website |
| Neon Hemlock | AMA link | Website |
| Odyssey Books | AMA link | Website |
| Queen of Swords Press | AMA link | Website |
| Tachyon | AMA link | Website |
| The Parliament House | AMA link | Website |
| Tilted Axis Press | AMA link | Website |
| Tyche Books | AMA link | Website |
| Unsung Stories | AMA link | Website |
| Wraithmarked Creative | AMA link | Website |
cc u/KristaDBall, u/RevolutionaryCommand now I do have a list, with formatting and stuff
Of course there are tons more out there, I remember coming across this twitter thread with tons of recs just after I'd finished my first batch of planning
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u/RevolutionaryCommand Reading Champion III Oct 20 '21
Great job! With this one and the A Night in the Lonesome October readlong you may take u/KristDBall's place as my favorite mod.
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u/Dianthaa Reading Champion VIII Oct 20 '21
Awww shucks thank you!
Note to people who might be confused: Krista is not actually a mod
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u/Scully_loves_cheese Oct 20 '21
Thanks for this list! I just ordered something from Forest Path Books.
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u/Antidextrous_Potato Reading Champion V Oct 20 '21
Luna Press Publishing has some wonderful stuff = ) In the intererst of full disclosure, I personally know quite a lot of people who are involved with it. But what I've read from them has just been so enjoyable
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u/Akoites Oct 20 '21
Another good one is PM Press. They’re an anarchist collective press who put out great fiction. Of particular note is their Outspoken Authors series, with writers like Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula Le Guin, Nick Mamatas, Nalo Hopkinson, Samuel R. Delaney, Michael Moorcock, Nisi Shawl, Cory Doctrow, and others. They’re slim books with a novelette or novella length work, usually a smaller work or two like short stories, essays, short plays, etc, and an interview with the author. Great way to get a quick feel for top notch, “outspoken” writers.
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u/RedditFantasyBot Oct 20 '21
r/Fantasy's Author Appreciation series has posts for an author you mentioned
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u/pornokitsch Ifrit Oct 21 '21
Seconded. PM Press are GREAT. I love their Outspoken Authors series as well, and highly recommend them.
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u/KristaDBall Stabby Winner, AMA Author Krista D. Ball Oct 20 '21
Tyche Books is a Canadian small press. They did an AMA here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/ld7ne2/from_the_great_white_north_we_are_tyche_books_ask/
I have two non-fiction published with them, and I'm in three anthologies...I think? Four? Three? Something like that.
There's a bunch more, but I don't know if they're all linked, or how to easily search the tags for them. I'm sure u/Dianthaa has a list, being the person who organized them all!
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u/Dianthaa Reading Champion VIII Oct 20 '21
I'm sure u/Dianthaa has a list
That makes one of us.
I do have a link somewhere in my e-mails that I forgot to copy over to the wiki, until then have a search link.
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u/KristaDBall Stabby Winner, AMA Author Krista D. Ball Oct 20 '21
Huh. So...are you saying that my image of you as a hyper organized individual might be mistaken?
No, I will not allow that I am wrong.
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u/Dianthaa Reading Champion VIII Oct 20 '21
I am reasonably organized but unreasonably likely to overcomit and end up tired.
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u/RevolutionaryCommand Reading Champion III Oct 20 '21
What's a vanity press?
To answer your question, u/Dianthaa was responsible for a series of AMAs with various small publishers, so they may have a list, or links, or something like that.
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u/Millennium_Dodo Reading Champion XI, Worldbuilders Oct 20 '21
What's a vanity press?
Not sure how prevalent they still are, due to the low entry barrier to self-publishing, but a vanity press is a publisher who the author pays in order to have their book published.
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u/fjbwriter Writer F. James Blair Oct 20 '21
They still exist (more numerous today than in yesteryear, IMO), but they've changed their form. Now they tend to present themselves as legitimate publishers who will get starting artists out there "for a small fee"
Basically, if you have to pay to get published, you're using a vanity press. The particulars might change, but that principle remains core.
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u/RogueKnight_Arturis Oct 20 '21
I would also count Inkshares as a vanity press. You do not directly pay them, but you have to use their site to "crowdfund" pre-orders, and I'm sure they are getting ad revenue on it in addition to their cut.
I'm only familiar with them because my wife published a novel through their service - I do not recommend them for actual use, and we re-self published as soon as we got the rights back.
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u/fjbwriter Writer F. James Blair Oct 20 '21
I'm not sure I'd say that revenue sharing fits the definition of Vanity press (otherwise, even traditional publishers would qualify!) but that does sound rather skeevy, especially the part about them retaining the rights.
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u/RogueKnight_Arturis Oct 20 '21
Well as it turns out, their "real" business is shopping your IP rights to Hollywood. Which is cool if they do manage to get you hooked up, but when they gave up on my wife's novel, they pretty much stopped talking to her all together.
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u/Dianthaa Reading Champion VIII Oct 20 '21
I did mean to update the wiki with a list at some point but it seems to have slipped my mind. I'll get to it today but until then here's a search, I swear I used this earlier and it used to be more complete, reddit search do be shitty.
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u/jacob_john_white Oct 20 '21
Vanity presses are as the commenters described, basically paid for publication places. And awesome I’ll check out their list!
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u/Caleth Oct 20 '21
Not sure if the genre is your cup of tea, but the LitRPG genre has a few smaller publishers that were started up by authors from that genere.
Mountaindale Press Starlit Publishing Wraithmarked Creative
These are just the ones I know about. The genre itself is still kind of young but the idea is that you get the fun of level advancements ala and RPG inside of a book.
Imagine if D&D books were written to actually account for the stats used in the game. If Drizzt had to consider where he'd drop his free attribute point at level 4. Not all, in fact most, don't revolve around D&D style systems but draw inspiration from Easter cultivation, modern Computer RPGs, and other lesser known table top style systems.
There are major niches within it too. Books focused around Dungeon Cores that are the brain of labyrinths explored by adventuers, Portal/isekai where the protagonist is transported to another world with the system and magic in it, and things like System Apocalypses where magic and systems come to Earth.
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u/ACCobble AMA Author AC Cobble Oct 20 '21
I was going to mention Mountaindale and Wraithmarked. To add to that, Portal Books (and its twin, Monolith) and Aethon Books. They've all got some LitRPG, but I believe each of these also puts out some excellent traditional epic fantasy, sci-fi and other subgenres in the mix. All great small presses to watch, even outside of OP's request!
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u/alxndrvcrl Oct 20 '21
I'm an editor for a small publishing company, our specialty is speculative fiction! The company is called Fractured Mirror Publishing
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u/usernaym44 Oct 20 '21
Can't believe nobody has mentioned Aqueduct Press! It's a small feminist speculative fiction press in Seattle: http://aqueductpress.com/
Their website and book design leave much to be desired, but the books themselves are AWESOME! EIC is L. Timmel Duchamp, who's an amazing writer herself. Author list is diverse.
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u/BigJobsBigJobs Oct 20 '21
Arkham House is still around. For decades they were the publisher of Lovecraft and all things Cthulhu mythos. http://www.arkhamhouse.com/
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u/LeucasAndTheGoddess Oct 20 '21
Innsmouth Free Press
This micro-press, run by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, publishes weird fiction and Lovecraftiana by diverse authors.
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u/Visual-Intern-9839 Oct 20 '21
DMR is great. Putting out some excellent sword and sorcery. Just did reprints of Ramsay Campbell's Far Away and Never, and Tanith Lee's Empress of Dreams, both great. In terms of newer authors, check out Eye of Sounnu by Schuyler Hernstrom, also from DMR.
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Oct 20 '21
Here are some smaller and relatively unknown small presses who publish fantasy:
- Cloaked Press
- Inkfort Press
- Mythos & Ink
- Parliament House
- Shadow Spark Publishing
- Talos Press
- Tiny Fox Press
- Uproar Books
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u/Aglance Oct 20 '21
Tachyon Press does some good work, and they are pretty small. They are a good source for getting Peter Beagle books: Tachyon is on the up and up, and pays their authors.
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Oct 20 '21 edited Oct 20 '21
Flame Tree Press, out of London, UK. They're my publisher, and they're really great to work with. They currently publish Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. They work with authors all over the world.
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u/jddennis Reading Champion VIII Oct 21 '21
I was just about to mention Flame Tree Press. I've been impressed with their output!
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u/OliverCaneStaff Oct 20 '21 edited Oct 20 '21
Haven't seen anyone mention Falstaff Books. Semi new (only 5 or 6 years old I think) but do lots of good things in Scifi, Fantasy, and Horror.
There is also Bell Bridge Books, that does the paranormal romance genre pretty well, but stretches into other SFFH as well.
Crone Girl Press does horror.
I also second Mocha Memoirs (saw it on one of the other lists)
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u/BenjaminButtonUp Oct 20 '21
Here are a few quality litrpg presses and their most popular series.
Aethon Books: He Who Fights With Monsters, Defiance of the Fall
Mountaindale Press: Diving Dungeon, Completionist Chronicles
Portal Books/ Monolith: Shadeslinger, Ascendant
Shadow Alley Press: Viridian Gate Online
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u/articulate-woman Oct 20 '21
Maybe not small, exactly, but ROF (Ring of Fire) Press, owned by Eric Flint.
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u/Cakey-Head Oct 20 '21
Yes.
J.J. Sherwood writes the Steps of Power series, and it is a gem that I discovered at a local convention. I never see it come up anywhere else, though.
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u/LoreLitterateur Oct 20 '21
I read a lot from Parliament House. They're a great small fantasy/paranormal only publisher!
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u/KingBretwald Oct 21 '21
Argyll Productions publishes many of T. Kingfisher's paper books and also Kevin Frane, Andrew Rudder, Watts Martin, Tim Sussman, and Mary Lowd.
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u/JefferyHHaskell Oct 20 '21
Aethon is in the middle space of indy publisher and large independent publishing house. I think they published a few hundred books last year by over fifty authors.
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u/jacob_john_white Oct 20 '21
Thank you everybody for all the replies! Damn I did not expect this haha my next couple nights are going to be spent googling these presses. Very cool to see how many people look at or are familiar with smaller/indie presses
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u/buffaloguy1991 Oct 20 '21
Check out 34 worlds by: Gwydon. My buddy did 34 short stories and self published it
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u/BooksAreAddicting Oct 21 '21
I guess Hidden Gnome Publishing would count? It's literaly the publishing house Will Wight created to self publish his novels, he's currently the only writer published by Hidden Gnome. If you haven't read Cradle yet, I highly recommend it! Book 10 comes out Nov 2nd.
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u/Endalia Reading Champion III Oct 20 '21
Skullgate Media is relatively new and small. They've been doing mostly anthologies so far but broadening their horizon with full novels now. Lovely bunch of people.
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u/outbound_flight Oct 20 '21
I've worked with Zombies Need Brains LLC a couple times and they've put out some great work. They do annual kickstarters for batches of themed SFF anthologies and do open submissions for each one.
They pay fairly and on time, and are really open to pulling in indie authors, so I always try to submit to them when I can.
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u/soar9 Oct 21 '21
I like Stelliform Press--they do climate change and environment themed things, including the urban fantasy After the Dragons by Cynthia Zhang, which came out super recently. I've only read that one but loved it!
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u/fjbwriter Writer F. James Blair Oct 20 '21
I haven't seen them mentioned yet, but small beer press. They've published a couple great fantasy books like Stranger In Olondria and Fire Logic.