Generous Press
Generous Press is a home for lush, high-caliber, and inclusive romance fiction: books so well written that every sentence is a delight to read aloud. Joy is at the center of everything we do. Generous authors are LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and/or disabled writers telling love stories starring diverse protagonists. If these descriptions fit you, and if our mission lights you up, we want to read your book.
Call for Submissions
Currently, Generous Press is looking for completed romance novels. We are open to all subgenres, including YA romance.
What are we looking for?
Submissions
Thank you for your interest in submitting to Generous Press, a publisher of romance fiction and other books about love.
Please read the following guidelines carefully before you submit your work.
When you submit, you will be invited to confirm that your work fits these criteria:
1. The story centers a relationship that is, or becomes, romantic.
2. That story ends happily. Happy doesn’t have to mean simple—take us on a journey! Leave us feeling joyful, hopeful, satiated, blushing, changed. But keep in mind that romance readers want to see the central romantic relationship go the distance.
3. One or more main characters embody experiences historically marginalized in romance fiction— ie. queerness, Black or brownness, sickness or disability, neurodivergence. We want to read about fat couples, trans protagonists, non-monogamous romance, butch-on-butch, multilingual romance, abolitionist romance. This is where we find ourselves reflected in a story where we don’t die! We’re not the sidekick or punchline or villain.
4. The author identifies as a Generous writer: you are LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and/or disabled, and you share the Generous Press vision, believing that romance fiction can be a balm and joyful way inward and forward, illuminating the power of self-love, genuine interdependence, and abundant pleasure.
5. The prose is high-caliber: carefully edited and thoughtfully crafted.
Generous Press romance fiction is defined by five characteristics.
If your novel is selected for publication at Generous Press, you will be offered an advance of at least $5,000 towards your royalties. We are working hard to be able to offer competitive and equitable advances! Your work will be copyrighted in your name, with publishing rights granted to Generous Press for a limited period. Books may be published in e-book or audio, but our focus is high-quality print books. All Generous authors will receive robust editorial and publicity support and national distribution.
What will Generous Press authors receive?
Generous submissions will be reviewed by Publisher Elaina Ellis (literary editor, formerly of Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry house Copper Canyon Press) and Deputy Publisher Amber Flame (poet and program director at world-renowned writers' residency Hedgebrook). You can read more about us here. Although we each have our favorite types of love stories—Amber has a penchant for noir and spice, while Elaina loves a slow-burn queer romcom—we are open to a full range of subgenres and tropes. Give us your best speculative, epic time-travel, experimental-yet-feel-good, forbidden enemies-to-friends-to-lovers-with-only-one-bed romance!
Who will read the work?
Simultaneous submissions are welcome.
Contact elaina@generous.press with questions and accessibility requests regarding submissions.