SF & Fantasy

Fantasy publishers and science fiction publishers occupy the same shelf here, because both ask a reader to accept a world that does not exist. The tag covers secondary worlds, invented magic, space travel, and futures that have not arrived, whether the tone is epic or quiet.

Which publishers are the best for fantasy books?

HarperCollins Publishers and Simon & Schuster both carry fantasy lines large enough to keep a series on the shelf across multiple volumes. Kensington and Other Press publish speculative work on a smaller scale, so the fit depends on whether you want a big list or a focused one.

Which fantasy publishers are currently accepting submissions?

Kensington and Other Press are the two names here most often open to unagented work, while HarperCollins Publishers and Simon & Schuster generally route speculative submissions through an agent. Check each house's own guidelines before you send anything, since open or closed status changes without notice.

How hard is it to get a fantasy book published?

Hard, because the invented elements have to be established early enough that a reader is not lost, and a house has to see a market for the specific world you built. A finished manuscript with a clear speculative hook stands a better chance than a partial one, whichever of these four names you approach.

HarperCollins Publishers, Kensington, Other Press and Simon & Schuster all sit under this tag, and what separates them from the literary fiction or action and adventure shelves is where the story is allowed to go. A fantasy or science fiction manuscript can carry an invented world, a made-up language, a magic system with its own rules, or a future that has not happened yet, and the house has to be willing to sell that to readers who want the worldbuilding as much as the plot. The same four names also reach readers that horror, occult and supernatural, and comics imprints do not: the audience here expects a secondary world or a speculative premise to be the point, not a mood or a monster.