1Graywolf Press
A non-profit literary publisher with a prize record that embarrasses houses many times its size, and one of the reasons Minneapolis is a serious literary city.
The 8 Best Book Publishing Companies in Minneapolis
Minneapolis has a claim to be the second literary publishing city in the United States, and the claim rests on three non-profit presses within a few miles of each other. Graywolf, Coffee House and Milkweed have between them published a share of the Pulitzers, National Book Awards and MacArthur Fellowships of the past two decades that would be respectable for a mid sized New York house, and they have done it on around eighty books a year combined. Add the University of Minnesota Press, one of the largest childrens publishers in the country in Lerner, and the historical society press across the river in Saint Paul, and the city is a genuine centre.
The listings below run across the Twin Cities, with location shown, because the metro publishes as one market. Two carry status notes: Free Spirit was acquired by Teacher Created Materials in 2019, and Beaver’s Pond in Edina is a paid hybrid rather than an acquiring house, which matters when comparing it to the others.
8
Publishers listed
1996
Publishing since
Featured publisher
Western Reflections Publishing Company
For authors in Minneapolis and the surrounding area, Western Reflections offers something most of the houses on this page cannot: a direct read, a written response and a publisher who will say plainly when another Minnesota press is the better home for your book. We have published regional history, biography and memoir from Colorado since 1996 and work with authors nationally by email and phone.
Services are quoted individually and never as a package, you retain copyright and all files, and books stay in print. A quote costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Contact
The listings
Book publishers working in Minneapolis
Contact details are the ones each publisher lists itself. Anything we could not confirm is left out rather than guessed.
2Coffee House Press
A Minneapolis non-profit publishing adventurous fiction, poetry and essays, with a residency programme that puts writers into unexpected working environments.
3Milkweed Editions
A non-profit literary publisher in the Open Book building, with a nature writing list that produced Braiding Sweetgrass, one of the most sustained bestsellers in recent American non-fiction.
4University of Minnesota Press
A scholarly press with international standing in critical theory, geography, media studies and indigenous studies, alongside a regional list that keeps Minnesota history in print.
5Lerner Publishing Group
One of the largest independent childrens publishers in the United States, family owned since 1959, publishing across picture books, non-fiction and young adult through a dozen imprints.
6Minnesota Historical Society Press
The publishing arm of the Minnesota Historical Society, covering state and regional history, Dakota and Ojibwe history, memoir and the Borealis Books reprint line.
7Beaver’s Pond Press
A Twin Cities hybrid publisher, working with authors who fund their own projects and keep the rights, with production and local distribution support.
8Free Spirit Publishing
A publisher of childrens and teen self help, social emotional learning and classroom resources, founded in Minneapolis in 1983 and acquired by Teacher Created Materials in 2019.
Status update: Acquired by Teacher Created Materials in 2019 and now operates within that group rather than as an independent Minneapolis publisher.
Local context
Professional Book Publishers in Minneapolis, Minnesota
The Open Book building on Washington Avenue is the clearest physical expression of a literary city anywhere in the country. It opened in 2000 to house the Loft Literary Center, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Milkweed Editions under one roof, with a coffee shop and a bookshop, and it has functioned since as the place where the city’s writers, editors, printers and binders actually run into each other. The Loft, founded in 1974, is the largest independent literary centre in the United States and has been teaching and paying writers for fifty years. Graywolf moved to the Twin Cities from Port Townsend, Washington in 1985 and Coffee House arrived from Iowa the year before, so the cluster is roughly forty years old.
The writers followed the infrastructure, or built it. Louise Erdrich has written a Pulitzer winning body of work about Ojibwe life from the city and since 2001 has run Birchbark Books in Kenwood, which functions as a national centre for Native writing. Kate DiCamillo has taken two Newbery Medals from Minneapolis. Marlon James won the Booker Prize while teaching at Macalester in Saint Paul. Bao Phi, Danez Smith and a generation of younger poets have come through the Loft and the spoken word scene around it. Across the river, F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on Laurel Avenue in 1896 and Garrison Keillor broadcast A Prairie Home Companion from the Fitzgerald Theater on Exchange Street for four decades.
The money is the part worth understanding. The McKnight Foundation has funded individual Minnesota writers directly since the 1980s. The Bush Foundation did the same. In 2008 voters passed the Legacy Amendment, dedicating a fraction of state sales tax to arts and cultural heritage for twenty five years. Rain Taxi has reviewed small press books since 1996 and runs the Twin Cities Book Festival. Magers and Quinn, Moon Palace and Milkweed’s own shop sell the results. A city cannot decide to have a literary culture, but it can decide to pay for one, and Minneapolis did.
Routes in
Getting Published in Minneapolis: Who Reads Directly, Prizes, and Where Books Launch
The Loft at Open Book is the first stop. It teaches hundreds of classes a year at every level, runs the Mentor Series that pairs emerging writers with established ones, and administers the McKnight Artist Fellowships for Writers. The Minnesota Center for Book Arts in the same building teaches letterpress and binding. Rain Taxi runs the Twin Cities Book Festival each October, the largest literary event in the state. The Minnesota Book Awards are announced each spring. Hamline and the University of Minnesota run MFAs, and the Minnesota State Arts Board’s Legacy funded grants are open to individual writers resident in the state.
Launches happen at Magers and Quinn in Uptown, Moon Palace in Longfellow, Milkweed Books at Open Book, Birchbark Books in Kenwood and Wild Rumpus for childrens titles, with Subtext and Next Chapter across the river in Saint Paul. The Hennepin County Library system lends heavily through OverDrive, so an ebook listed for libraries reaches Minneapolis readers at a rate it would not elsewhere. Of the eight publishers listed above, University of Minnesota Press and the Minnesota Historical Society Press read proposals directly, Coffee House and Milkweed read during announced windows, Graywolf reads through agents and its prizes, Lerner reads through agents, and Beaver’s Pond is a paid service. Learning which of those fits your manuscript is most of the work of getting published in this city.
What we do
Book Publishing Services We Offer in Minneapolis
Every service is quoted on its own, so you buy the stages your manuscript actually needs rather than a package built around the ones it does not.
Editing
Developmental, line and copy editing, plus proofreading, quoted by manuscript length and condition.
Learn more →Cover Design
Original cover artwork and typography, supplied as layered source files you keep.
Learn more →Formatting & Typesetting
Print ready interiors and reflowable ebook files built from one typeset source.
Learn more →Printing
Short runs, offset runs and print on demand, with paper and binding specified to the book.
Learn more →Marketing & Promotion
Launch planning, retailer metadata, review outreach and regional bookshop campaigns.
Learn more →Ghostwriting
Full manuscript writing from interviews, notes or a partial draft, published under your name.
Learn more →Why Minneapolis Authors Choose Western Reflections Publishing
We tell literary writers to try the Minneapolis presses first
For fiction, poetry and the essay, Graywolf, Coffee House and Milkweed are among the best publishers in the country and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We work with the memoir, regional history and non-fiction they do not publish.
A read and a written answer, which the big three cannot offer at volume
The literary presses receive far more than they can read and mostly cannot respond. We are smaller, and every submission gets a person and a written reply.
Fixed fees, rights retained, files delivered
Services quoted individually, copyright and every production file yours, and no perpetual royalty share in exchange for production work.
Our Book Publishing Process for Minneapolis Authors
Step 1
Read and direction
An honest assessment and, for literary work, a straightforward steer toward the Minneapolis press whose list it fits, with the reading period explained.
Step 2
Scope and quote
A written plan of only what the manuscript needs, priced by stage.
Step 3
Edit, design, produce
Structure first, then line and copy editing, then cover and interior with proofs.
Step 4
Print, distribute, launch
Print on demand or a run, wholesale and library listings, and a launch plan around Magers and Quinn, Moon Palace, Birchbark and the Twin Cities Book Festival.
Questions authors ask
Frequently Asked Questions: Book Publishing in Minneapolis
What is the Open Book building and why does it matter to authors?
Open Book at 1011 Washington Avenue South is a converted set of warehouse buildings that since 2000 has housed the Loft Literary Center, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Milkweed Editions, along with a bookshop and a coffee shop. For an author it means classes, a publisher, a letterpress studio and a reading venue in one building, and the informal contact between them that produces introductions. It is the single most useful address in Minneapolis publishing and a good first place to spend an afternoon.
How do the three Minneapolis literary presses take submissions?
Graywolf does not read unsolicited manuscripts and works through agents, prizes and fellowships. Coffee House and Milkweed open reading periods rather than reading year round, and the current guidelines on their sites are the only reliable source for when. All three have strong and distinct editorial identities; Coffee House says plainly it wants formal risk, Milkweed has a deep nature writing list, Graywolf’s essays and poetry are a recognisable house style. Read six recent books from the one you are considering before sending anything.
How much does it cost to publish a book in Minneapolis?
Nothing at the non-profits, the university press or the historical society press, which acquire and carry production; advances are modest or absent and royalties are the point. Beaver’s Pond in Edina is a paid hybrid and charges the author. Bought as separate services, the Twin Cities freelance market is reasonably priced and a full length book commonly runs three to seven thousand dollars for a structural edit, copyedit, cover and interior. The Loft’s classes are a cheap and genuinely good way to improve a manuscript before paying anyone.
Who holds the rights to Ojibwe or Dakota stories and knowledge?
This is a live question in Minneapolis in a way it is not in most cities, because of Birchbark Books, the Minnesota Historical Society Press’s Native lists and the number of Native writers publishing here. Your own words are your copyright. Community knowledge, ceremonial material and stories held by a nation or a family may not be yours to license regardless of who wrote them down, and serious publishers here will ask about consent and community review. Build that conversation into the project from the start.
Which formats suit a Minneapolis book?
Trade paperback for literary fiction, poetry and essays, which is what the independents publish and the bookshops sell. Library binding and hardcover are worth costing for childrens books because Minnesota’s library market is unusually strong, and Lerner has built a large business partly on it. Audio suits memoir and narrative non-fiction. Ebook matters for the Hennepin County and Saint Paul systems, which lend heavily through OverDrive.
Is Saint Paul part of the Minneapolis publishing scene?
Yes, the Twin Cities publish as one market and the listings above include Saint Paul with the location shown. The Minnesota Historical Society Press is there, Graywolf spent years there before moving across the river, Marlon James teaches at Macalester, and Fitzgerald’s birthplace and the Fitzgerald Theater are both on the Saint Paul side. Edina, where Beaver’s Pond operates, is a first ring suburb. An author anywhere in the metro has all eight publishers within half an hour.
Find Publishers All Across Minnesota
City directories go deeper on the local scene; the state page carries every publisher in Minnesota.