You have finished the memoir. Now you need a publisher that will actually read it, and one that publishes memoir in the first place.
Six houses read memoir and take work directly from writers, without a literary agent. Three more are wide open to unagented writers but publish something else entirely, which will save you a week on a proposal that was never going anywhere. One is a paid service, and that difference matters more here than in any other genre. At the bottom you will find five names memoirists often ask about, and where each one stands. If you want the wider view afterwards, browse the full catalog of publishing companies.
Submission policies change without notice, so check the publisher’s own page before you send anything. Last verified: July 31, 2026.
Memoir Publishers Accepting Manuscripts
These six publish memoir or narrative nonfiction and say on their own sites that a writer may approach them directly.
1. Red Hen
Red Hen Press accepts unsolicited submissions, and it is the most direct answer here to the question of where a memoir goes. The guidelines page is headed with that promise in as many words, and the list of what the press is looking for names memoirs and creative nonfiction alongside novels, essays and poetry collections. It is an independent nonprofit publishing around twenty-five books a year, so the door is narrow, but it is genuinely open.
Send a cover letter with your name, contact details, a short synopsis, your background and why the book fits the press, together with either the full manuscript or a sample of twenty to thirty pages with numbering on every page. Expect three to six months for a reply. Agents have a separate address at acquisitions@redhen.org.
One thing to note before you write to anyone here: Red Hen has posted a warning that people have been impersonating its staff by email. Anything that does not come from an address ending redhen.org is not from the press.
Contact:
- Address: PO Box 40820, Pasadena, CA 91114, United States
2. Chicago Review Press
Chicago Review Press accepts proposals from writers and from agents, with no requirement that you have one. Its list is nonfiction across history, biography, popular science and social history, and its imprints include Lawrence Hill Books, Academy Chicago, Parenting Press, Amberjack, Interlude and Council Oak.
What it wants is a proposal, not a finished manuscript: a one-sentence description, a synopsis of a paragraph or two, and an estimated final word count for the book. Simultaneous submissions are fine. Nonfiction proposals go by email to frontdesk@chicagoreviewpress.com. New fiction proposals are outside its list now, so send only nonfiction.
Contact:
- Address: 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
3. BenBella Books
BenBella Books accepts unsolicited proposals, and says it is actively acquiring strong nonfiction. Fiction is outside what the Dallas publisher is looking for, which makes it a cleaner fit for memoir and narrative nonfiction than most independents of its size.
Its pitching page is unusually candid about what improves your odds. It is open to any nonfiction proposal, but it is most interested in authors who arrive with an audience already: a platform, a speaking circuit, a following that will buy the book in its first month. Read that honestly before you write, because a memoir with no readership behind it is a harder sell here than at a nonprofit literary press.
Contact:
- Address: 10440 North Central Expressway, Suite 800, Dallas, TX 75231, United States
4. Black & White Publishing
Black & White Publishing accepts proposals, and celebrity memoirs sit at the top of its own list of the nonfiction it wants. The Edinburgh publisher also asks for sports books with a UK and Ireland focus, lifestyle and humour, food and drink, nature writing, and Scottish and Irish nonfiction generally.
The proposal is deliberately short. One side of A4 covering who you are, your background, and what the book will cover, sent by email, with nothing by post, which the publisher will not consider or return. You will hear within six months if it wants to take things further, and silence past that is a no. Every proposal is treated as confidential, and the press is candid that it cannot give editorial feedback on the ones it turns down.
Fiction works differently here. Unsolicited novels from writers have been ruled out since 31 October 2019, and the press reopens fiction only in windows it announces on its own page and social accounts. Agents may still send fiction at any time. Only English-language work is considered.
Contact:
- Address: Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
5. Autumn House
Autumn House Press accepts submissions of memoir, though not in the way the rest of this page does, and the difference matters enough to spell out. There is no rolling inbox. The nonfiction route is the Autumn House Nonfiction Prize, a contest with a reading fee of $35, a window that opens on 1 March and closes on 30 April, and a single winner who receives publication and $2,500.
The press asks for personal essay collections and memoirs of roughly 150 to 300 double-spaced pages, which is 37,500 to 75,000 words. Self-help is outside the contest. Manuscripts are read blind, so your last name must not appear anywhere in the text, and there should be no bio or acknowledgements page. Simultaneous submissions are permitted. The fee is waived for writers in financial hardship, but you have to read the press’s own statement and follow its instructions before asking.
Entries go through Duotrope’s DuoSuma, not Submittable, and that is a detail to check on the press’s own page each year, because the platform link is the part of a contest listing that goes stale first.
Contact:
- Address: 5530 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206, United States
6. Unnamed Press
Unnamed Press accepts unagented queries, sent to info@unnamedpress.com with the manuscript attached. The Los Angeles publisher describes what it does simply as literature from around the world, and its list runs to both fiction and nonfiction, with a strong line in translation.
It is the least prescriptive of the six, which cuts both ways. There is no memoir category named on its site, so a memoir here is a literary submission judged as literature and not as a category title. The press also warns that the volume it receives means it cannot confirm receipt of every query, and that you will hear back only if it wants to read more.
Contact:
- Address: Los Angeles, CA, United States
Open To Unagented Writers, But Not For Memoir
These three take work directly from writers. None of them publishes memoir, so sending one costs you the wait and tells you nothing.
7. Kensington Publishing
Kensington Publishing accepts unagented queries and states an open submission policy, which for a house publishing several hundred books a year is unusual. It is happy to work with unagented, hybrid and indie authors, and it wants a query in the body of the email only, with no attachments, and an editor coming back to you only if the idea interests them. Allow three months, and read silence as a no.
The catch for a memoirist is the category list. Kensington’s nonfiction is narrative nonfiction, and it names biography, cultural analysis, history, popular science and true crime. Memoir is not on it. A life story told as biography or as true crime has a home here; a personal memoir does not. Work written by AI is refused outright, and the house publishes no short stories, poetry, children’s, middle grade or young adult fiction, nor crafts, cookbooks or design-led nonfiction.
One thing to watch: the Kensington submissions link that circulates on other sites now lands on the Erewhon Books imprint, whose own door is shut. The address above is the house-wide one.
Contact:
- Address: 900 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022, United States
8. Chronicle Books
Chronicle Books accepts unagented submissions under a stated open submissions policy, and it is one of the better-known independents to do so. Proposals go by email to submissions@chroniclebooks.com as a single Word file or PDF under 5MB, and you should allow six months for a reply.
Its adult trade list is nonfiction, but a particular kind: cooking, fine art, design, photography, pop culture, fashion, beauty, home decor, plus the interactive journals, decks, games and stationery the publisher is known for. There is no memoir category, and adult fiction is outside what it acquires. If your book is visual, gift-shaped or food-led, this is a strong door. A memoir is not what it is looking for.
Contact:
- Address: 680 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107, United States
9. Stone Pier Press
Stone Pier Press accepts submissions of the first two chapters plus a cover letter introducing yourself, whether you have been published before, and what makes the book distinctive. Everything is handled electronically.
It calls itself an environmental publishing company, and the catalogue backs that up: gardening, cookbooks, backyard farming, bees and pollinators, composting, and children’s books about food and growing. A memoir about a life in the garden might find a hearing. A memoir about anything else will not.
Contact:
- Address: San Francisco, CA, United States
Pay-To-Publish Memoir Services
This one belongs here because memoir attracts more paid services than any other genre, and because it is easy to mistake for a publisher. The distinction is simple: a publisher pays you, a service charges you.
10. Memoirs Books
Memoirs Books accepts submissions from anyone, because you are the customer. The Cirencester company specialises in memoir and autobiography and sells a tailored service: cover design, printing in paperback or a bespoke format, photographs set into the text, and ghostwriting built from your interviews, notes, letters and papers. You choose whether to print a handful of copies for family or to sell the book more widely.
None of that is hidden. The model is stated plainly on the homepage, and it is simply a different transaction from the nine entries above. If what you want is a beautifully made book for the people in it, this is a legitimate way to get one. If what you want is a publisher to take the risk and pay you an advance, it is not.
Contact:
- Phone: 07746 611453
- Address: 2nd Floor, 6-8 Dyer Street, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, GL7 2PF, United Kingdom
Names You May Be Looking For
Five publishers memoirists often ask about, and where each one stands today.
City Lights states on its own publishing page that it is regrettably unable to accept manuscript submissions or book proposals. There is no writer’s route at citylights.com, solicited or otherwise.
Persea Books is not currently reading unsolicited fiction or nonfiction. The single live route on perseabooks.com is a poetry query with up to twelve sample pages, which is no use to a memoirist. The press is active and publishes memoir among other things; it just is not taking any in.
Bellevue Literary Press lists the genres it will not consider, and memoir is the first word on that list, alongside self-improvement, popular reference, handbooks, cookbooks, plays and poetry. It is also not reading unsolicited work at present, running open periods when its small staff can manage them.
Sourcebooks is trading vigorously and its own navigation carries a memoir category, so the books are real. The submissions page is not: no submissions page exists anywhere on sourcebooks.com, and its guidance on publishing scams still refers to “our posted submission guidelines” without linking them. With no first-party page stating a policy either way, there is nowhere to send a manuscript.
Rio Nuevo Publishers is no longer trading. The Globe Pequot Publishing Group announced on 12 November 2025 that it had bought selected assets from Rio Nuevo, including substantially all the titles Rio Nuevo had published since it began. Its domain still resolves, but the server answers nothing at all over http, https or www.
Wrap Up
Six real doors, and Red Hen is the one to try first if your memoir is literary and you have no agent. Read each publisher’s guidelines on its own site before you send anything, because the platform links and reading windows are the parts that rot fastest. An outdated Submittable address on a contest page is a rejection you never even see.
Rejection is most of this work regardless. Stephen King and Kathryn Stockett both collected piles of it before anyone said yes. If you want to widen the net, the list of publishers accepting unsolicited manuscripts covers houses outside the US and UK, magazines that publish personal essays are a good way to build the readership BenBella and its peers want to see, and the best books on writing a memoir will sharpen the manuscript before you send it anywhere.
Rafal Reyzer
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