Favorite Five Publishers
Well, this is a tougher topic than I thought it’d be! There are so many wonderful publishers out there, it’s hard to choose favorites. Also, a lot of times do we really pay attention to who is publishing the books we love? I’ve always been aware of a few publishers because of the genres I read, but for the most part I didn’t really start noticing and following some publishers until the last couple of years. Here are a few of my favorites, but certainly not all of them…there are many more I could list!
- Tor.com Publishing – Tor.com is publishing some of the hottest titles right now. What I love most is that they’re publishing novellas, including Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series which has become one of my favorite things ever. I love that they’re willing to take a chance on shorter formats and also take a chance on new authors! I’m looking forward to digging into even more of their catalog.
- Tachyon Publications – Oh, I really love this publisher. They’re publishing so many great authors including Peter S. Beagle, Patricia A. McKillip, Charles de Lint, Nancy Springer, and Jane Yolen — just to name a few! The works that they’re publishing are so magical and filled with wonderful prose…all around great stuff.
- Saga Press – Saga has published some of my recent faves! I love that they’re looking for different and new, some stories that may be a little unconventional (like Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente or Trail of Lighting by Rebecca Roanhorse). A few other great things from Saga that I’ve read: Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings, Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon, and The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris. So many great books!
- Angry Robot – Ok, I’ll be honest, partly why I love Angry Robot is that I just love their name so darn much, lol. But! They also publish a lot of fun books. I love Wes Chu’s The Life of Tao and Jeannette Ng’s Under the Pendulum Sun has been one of my top reads of the year so far. This is another publisher that’s not afraid to look outside of the box. There are a lot of other great authors that are publishing with Angry Robot including Kameron Hurley, D.B. Jackson, and Foz Meadows among others.
- DAW – I think I have to include DAW just because they’ve published so much amazing SFF over the last 50 or so years. So many great authors have been published by DAW! I remember back in my early days of reading SFF DAW seemed to dominate the bookshelves. I do enjoy a lot of the newer presses and imprints but reading books published by DAW and some of the other early SFF publishers really grew my love for the genre and I’ll always remember that.
So, that’s my list! There are a ton that I’ve left out of course and I’m sorry I had to keep my list to five! What are some of your favorite publishers? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!
Next week’s topic is: Favorite Five Guilty Pleasure Reads! Looking forward to that one!
Way Too Fantasy 
Lovely post 😍
Thanks!
I’m very aware of publishers and I could tell you the publisher of every book I’ve read, at least since I’ve been blogging. I love all the publishers on this list, and I would add two of my favorites, Orbit and Pyr.
I’m more aware since I’ve been blogging as well. I love Orbit too! I don’t think I’m as familiar with Pyr although I am sure I’ve read some of their titles.
I don’t pay attention to publishers at all! I probably should but its too much work. 😂😂 Back in May I pulled my goodreads numbers and one of the stats was publishers. My top five read publishers are Harper Collins, Scholastic, Penguin Books, St. Martin’s Press, and Random House.
I’m not sure if goodreads breaks it down by individual imprints or just the main publishers…that’s pretty interesting. I haven’t looked at my stats, I’ll have to do that. DAW is part of Penguin…and I think at least one of the others I have listed is under Random House, can’t remember lol. 🙂
I exported my reading list and there was a column for publisher and it was the publisher of the edition you marked as read. So there are quite a few that I probably chose the wrong edition so its not fool proof. Also a lot of the time the same publisher is worded differently. For example there is Penguin Books, Penguin, Penguin Classics, Penguin Puffin, etc. So I did my best to combine all of those into just “Penguin Books” in my stats. But I didn’t know DAW was part of penguin so obviously I missed those haha. So it is a bit messy and there is a lot of room for error!
Oh yeah, I don’t really pay attention to the edition I pick on goodreads lol! I doubt mine would be super accurate.
Tor ❤ I’m surprised the only other publisher I’ve heard of on your list is Angry Robot. Seems like I need to branch out more.
I love Tor ❤
It would be difficult for me to narrow it down to just five, as I have become quite aware of publishers ever since I started blogging too 😀 I do love the smaller SFF publishing houses though, very cool to see Tachyon on here. Angry Robot used to be one of my faves too, but ever since their company got shuffled around a few years back, I haven’t been enjoying their stuff as much. Orbit is a big publisher, but they’re definitely up there among my favorites. And Harper Voyager has been stepping up lately with a ton of great stuff. Oh, and a shout out to Pyr! They don’t publish a lot in terms of volume, but their stories are always high quality.
I’ve heard others say the same about Angry Robot, but I do still enjoy some of their stuff, but I agree that they used to be a lot more hit than miss. I like Orbit too and agree about Harper Voyager as well. It was really tough to pick just 5!
I checked and I have read a couple titles published by Pyr (The Greyfriar series which was one of my favorite things I read last year). I really need to check out more of their stuff!
Oh, I love The Greyfriar series! When I started blogging, book one was the first review copy I ever received from a publisher. So I guess that’s another reason Pyr will always have a special place in my heart 😀
Yeah, that was one series where I was like ‘wait, so he’s a good vampire who likes cats? Was this written for me????’ Lol I love that series so much.
I find publishing almost to be a minefield – so many different names (that are so similar) and subsidiaries. I agree with what Mogsy and Tammy both said and defiitely second Pyr – I’m loving their books at the moment.
Great list.
Lynn 😀
Right, almost all publishers are offshoots of one of the big 5. Will definitely check out Pyr!