romance publishers who accept unsolicited manuscripts

#ROMANCE PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS FOR FREE#
#ROMANCE PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS SERIES#
#ROMANCE PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS FREE#

It follows Harlequin’s decision last year to close its African American romance imprint Kimani, citing at the time “changes in the retail landscape and reader preferences”, and “declining support from retailers”īut The Ripped Bodice’s owners said that their own figures give the lie to the “main argument” publishers give for not publishing authors of colour: “that the sales are not strong enough”. But in the same week as the report, S&S announced that the imprint will close, citing “changing consumer reading habits and the continual evolution of the marketplace”. At Riptide, 4.8% of its books were by authors of colour, slightly up from 2016 in total, 80% of publishers surveyed had fewer than 10% of their books written by people of colour.īy far, the best-performing publisher in the report was Simon & Schuster’s imprint Crimson, with 29.3% of titles by authors of colour. Riptide was one of the publishers included in the Ripped Bodice’s study, which analysed 3,762 books to identify how many were by authors of colour. The report revealed that for every 100 books published by the leading romance press in 2017, only 6.2 were written by people of colour, down from 7.8 in 2016. “Clearly there is plenty of room to pull up more chairs as long as the people sitting in those chairs are white,” wrote the report’s authors, Bea and Leah Koch, who run the romance bookstore The Ripped Bodice, in Culver City, Los Angeles. It’s time for us to take a good, hard look at ourselves and foster new, diverse voices to help us see what we’ve missed in the past,” said the statement from co-owners Rachel Haimowitz and Tal Valante.īut the controversy arrives as a report into diversity in the genre found that fewer books by authors of colour were published in 2017 compared to the previous year, despite an increase in the numbers of books published overall. “We need to prune the aspects of our company, our attitudes, and our message that are rotten. It has closed its doors to unsolicited submissions, and returned rights to angry authors “who have sought to dissolve relationships with us”. Riptide issued a subsequent statement in which it acknowledged that “apologies are not enough”, and that “the anger that has been directed toward us in the past days is justified”.

#ROMANCE PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS SERIES#

As Riptide authors came forward to ask for their books to be pulled from the publisher’s list in the wake of McCade’s revelations, the publisher issued a statement saying it had accepted Lyons’s resignation, describing her behaviour as “unacceptable” and said that it did not condone Lyons’s comments about people of colour on covers.īut the uproar continued to grow, as authors and readers shared Riptide’s previous missteps: in 2016, it apologised after one of its novels featured a black character who was referred to as “Dark Chocolate Love Monkey” earlier, it also apologised for a website for a series set in a world where slavery remained legal, which included fake ads for buying and recruiting slaves. And happy to be so.Lyons has since resigned.

So you may consider this is my official recognition that, when it comes to this publisher, I was flat-out wrong. I found myself wishing other publishers devoted the same attention to what works and why. This department has worked the analytics masterfully.

#ROMANCE PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS FREE#

They generously shared charts, graphs, and details about how their free digital marketing functions, and the statistics are downright impressive.

#ROMANCE PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS FOR FREE#

On an unrelated topic, for those of you who might recall the blog post I wrote on whether offering digital books for free made sense, I had a recent conversation with individuals in a publisher’s marketing division that has given me whiplash. I look forward to seeing what you’ve got! I will respond within 8 weeks after submissions close.

Include in your submission your bio and your social media involvement (that means number of friends, blog page views, Twitter followers, etc).

Send your proposal (maximum synopsis–5 pages, single-spaced) and the first three manuscript chapters in one document attached to an email submitted to Use the subject line “romance blog submission” in your email.

I will accept submissions for two weeks (through October 11).

If you have such a proposal and manuscript or know someone who does, here’s how submissions will work:

the standard romance formula (hero and heroine meet in the first chapter, alternating POV, etc.).

Here’s a sample of Love Inspired’s guidelines.

manuscripts that fit within the guidelines, including word count, of such Love Inspired and Barbour’s romance lines.

So let’s call this week’s blog my Want Ad. I’d like to represent more authors who want to write pure romance–contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and historical romance. I’ve been thinking about a hole in my current client list that’s in need of being filled.

Romance publishers who accept unsolicited manuscripts