If you’re an author in Boston, Massachusetts who has written a manuscript and need a publisher, one of the following 5 top book publishing companies in Boston are worth taking a look at. Do note you will need a literary agent to make a submission on your behalf to a couple of them.
1. Beacon Press
Serious non-fiction is the forte of Beacon Press. An independent publishing house founded in 1854 whose current Director is Helene Atwan, Beacon Press’s books are known for promoting diversity, on encouraging readers to speak and think freely, on anti-racism and pluralism when it comes to religion.
Renowned for publishing great works such as Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin, Gyn/Ecology by Mary Daly and One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse, among many others, Beacon Press publishes books about history, current affairs, African-American studies, religion, studies about gender and gay and lesbian communities, issues about children and families and books about the environment. Its titles and authors have won prestigious awards such as the American Book Award, the Christopher Award, National Book Awards, among other accolades.
If you’re interested in making a submission to Beacon Press, this publisher encourages you to get acquainted with its books and its organizational mission. It is open to submissions for general trade books. It doesn’t accept manuscripts for fiction, poetry and self-help books. If you feel your book would make a good addition to Beacon Press’s collection, you can email a query of 250 words through email explaining your proposal. If Beacon Press is interested in your work, it will request a full proposal. The email address to send your query to is editorial@beacon.org. Take a look at this page for further information.
2. Cheng & Tsui
If you’ve written an educational book in an Asian language, you may want to take a look at Cheng & Tsui. An independent publishing house based in Boston, it specializes in publishing textbooks and educational materials in languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, other Asian languages, and even in Arabic. With a mission to expose the world to Asia, and founded in 1979, it publishes language textbooks for students at K-12 level and for a students at University, along with literary classics, cultural books, and other educational resources such as DVDs and audio downloads.
If you would like to make a submission, your book needs to be educational and related to Asia. Your submission needs to include a synopsis of your book, an explanation of the target readership for your book with details of courses your title might be used in if it is a textbook, similar books already available in a list format and an explanation as to why your book is different and why it is needed, a summary of you and your qualifications relevant to your book (one paragraph), your CV, your complete manuscript, or a table of contents, an introduction and three chapters if you are submitting a manuscript in progress. Do take a good read of this page to find out the full submission guidelines. Cheng & Tsui prefers to accept submissions via email, and do note that it can take this publisher a number of months to take a look at your manuscript, due to the number of submissions it receives.
3. David R. Godine, Publisher
A small book publisher in Boston, David R. Godine, Inc., publishes approximately 30-40 titles annually. These include books for children and young adults, fiction, history and biography, nature and gardening, poetry, translations of the very best works from across the world, regional books and words and humor. It also has a program for the acquisition of books and for reprints of works.
Founded in 1970 by David Godine, a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard University, this publishing house has always focused on producing books in hardcover, softcover and as eBooks of the highest quality, and which are aesthetically beautiful. Its titles are unique and of the kind that merit publication, but those which mainstream publishers would not support as they might not become global bestsellers.
If you’re interested in making a submission, it won’t come as a surprise to know that Godine is highly selective of the books it takes on due to its small size. You will need a literary agent as Godine doesn’t accepting unsolicited manuscripts or proposals. If you do send an unsolicited manuscript, which is not recommend, unless you have included a self-addressed envelope and postage, your manuscript won’t be returned back to you. If you do have a literary agent, you can request him/her to contact Godine to inquire about making a submission.
4. Da Capo Press
Da Capo Press was started in 1964 initially as a publisher of music books. In the 1970s it became a general trade publishing house, and in 1999 it became an imprint of Perseus Books. Perseus Books is an imprint of Hachette Book Group. Da Capo Press is a publisher of mainly nonfiction books about music, history, performing arts, and popular culture. It also has two imprints known as Lifelong Books (publisher of health and wellbeing books) and Seal Press (publisher of books for women). Da Capo Press doesn’t accept unsolicited proposals for books or manuscripts, so you’ll need a literary agent to make a submission to this publisher on your behalf. If you have any questions, you can contact Da Capo Press using this email address: DaCapo.Info@hbgusa.com.
5. Harvard Common Press
Harvard Common Press was founded in 1976 and is a leading publishing house of cookbooks and books about pregnancy and childbirth. Its books are award-winning and since 2016 this publisher has been a part of The Quarto Publishing Group USA.
If you would like to make a submission, you can send a book proposal. Your proposal needs to include a paragraph introducing yourself with details of your credentials for writing about the subject matter of your book, details about any books you’ve previously had published, when these were published, which publisher published them and information on the number of sales of your titles. You also need to provide some information on how well known your profile is as an author in your professional network and on social media.
Your proposal also needs to include a summary of your book idea consisting of its proposed title and subtitle, an explanation of the topic of your book, a table or contents or outline, an overview of the planned content for each chapter and expected completed date. Don’t forget to also include any visual materials (artwork, photographs, diagrams, charts, mock-ups of the cover etc.), along with information on the audience profile your book is targeted to, planned sales channels, a list of competitor titles, details of how your book is different to the competition, and your plans for promoting your book. Do take a look at this page for further details and ensure you submit your book to the right category.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of Writing Tips Oasis.[/author_info] [/author]