As a first time writer, I'm constantly searching what publishers I could come forward to without an agent. I didn't want my research to go to waste, so I put a blog post together listing the publishing houses with links and organised it by GENRE. https://tijennicolebutler.wordpress.com/2017/12/15/publishers-that-accept-unsolicited-manuscripts-by-first-time-writers/ Take a look for your fit. It's organised with those accepting all genres, then those accepting... children's, teen fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, romance, thriller/mystery and self help. I hope this list comes in handy for some of you... but in the interested of building the list, please let me know if there are any I missed out
You're missing dozens that I can name, so probably hundreds overall - it's an ambitious project, and there are already databases out there doing the same thing (with more resources). I'd probably add to the introduction that it isn't an exhaustive list, just so newbie writers don't see it and think, "Oh crap, are the options so limited?" I'd treat it more as a way to keep your personal research in one place, rather than think of it as a resource for other writers. That would be a very time-consuming project!
Any chance a full list (or as full as reasonable) could be added to one of the forums and amended as appropriate (a couple on the list were no longer accepting unsolicited manuscripts when I checked). Perhaps a wiki page could be created and linked from this forum? Just an idea.
Thanks for sharing your research! The responses you pulled from other contributors are a mix of daunting and inspiring -- at least we've got confirmation that there are many, many options out there.
Allen & Unwin accept unsolicited manuscripts every Friday (I think?) - has to be between certain hours though. So do Pan MacMillan (or they did) - maybe once a month.
The US Naval Institute Press https://www.usni.org/navalinstitutepress takes unsolicited manuscripts for military, primarily naval, topics. See https://www.usni.org/naval-institute-press/writing for guidelines. Primarily non-fiction but accepts some fiction, make it good, they know their stuff. About 80% of their publications are via direct submission. Tom Clancy got his start there with "Hunt for Red October" and "Red Storm Rising"
