Literary Indiana: Meet the Presses

Break Away Books

An Indiana University Press series, Break Away publishes works that have a Midwestern angle but broad appeal. Its titles focus on out-of-the-spotlight people and “turn the heart of the heartland inside out, eschewing neat and tidy endings.” So it’s no surprise that the series editor is native Hoosier and king of quirk Michael Martone.

Engine Books

This Indy boutique press for literary fiction cares less about making a profit and more about making your writing shine. Proof: It publishes only four titles a year, generally by female authors. One of those slots (along with $1,000) goes to the winner of its annual fiction prize. Yearning to write young adult? Check out Engine’s Lacewing Books imprint.

Author Solutions

Self-publishing companies are more plentiful than James Patterson books. But Author Solutions is the world’s largest, and it’s headquartered in Bloomington. More than 180,000 authors have published there, paying about $1,500 on average for services ranging from proofreading to promotion. The upside: Authors keep a larger portion of sales than at a traditional publisher. The downside: Reviews can be much harder to come by.

Literary Indiana: The Next Chapter
• Indiana’s Fiction Writers
• Indiana’s Nonfiction Writers
• Indiana’s Poets