YA Fantasy Market: Five Star Publishers

One of the editors who impressed me at last spring's Pikes Peak Writer's Conference was Denise Little, Executive Editor at Five Star (http://gale.cengage.com/fivestar/). She gave the best on-the-spot manuscript critiques (during a First Page session) that I've ever heard an editor give. Her spot-on comments impressed me. I'd definitely enjoy working with her.

She called Five Star a publisher of “last resort” because they pay $1000 + royalty. However, they manage to get some great reviews for their books and buy very limited rights. With good reviews , they can sell a book to mass market houses. Cheryl's translation: they don't pay much up front, but they do right by their authors.

Denise said that she accepts only email queries. She recommends submitting 3 pgs + synopsis. Five Star does not accept simultaneous subs.

Update from a writing friend: they respond quickly, but are not currently accepting any YA. Maybe in the spring?

Here's the official Five Star blurb from the PPWC conference handouts:

Five Star Science fiction and Fantasy: Five Star SF and Fantasy is a series of science fiction and fantasy novels, with some supernatural horror. These will be published initially in hardcover, with a limited option to bring them out in trade paperback and/or large print as well. The publisher is Thorndike Press, best known for their large print titles. We are looking for works of approximately 65K to 100K words, and are currently accepting electronic submissions only. Some of the authors who have participated in this series so far include Gregory Benford, Mike Resnick, Pamela Sargent, Robert Silverberg, Spider Robinson, Brian Stableford, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Jack Williamson, Steve Perry, Susan Sizemore, Timothy Zahn, and Christopher Stasheff.
These editions sell almost exclusively to the library market. Because of this, their print runs are modest, and they do not normally distribute to bookstores, since their discounts are small (though the books are available through such on-line chains as amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, and can also be ordered by practically any bookstore.)

~Cheryl