Generous Press—Call for Romance Novels by Writers of the Global Majority

Generous Press is looking for the next great romance novel! We are a startup book publisher dedicated to queer, BIPOC, and disabled love stories. We primarily publish romance fiction, but as poets-at-heart we are always open to literary-leaning, genre-blurring work as well as mainstream commercial fiction.

This summer, we want to read beautifully crafted romance novels by writers who are of the global majority: Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). If you do not fit that description, please hold your submission until a future reading period. We especially want to read:

• Queer contemporary rom-coms including Sapphic and Achillean pairings. Give us When Harry Met Sally, but make it gay! Queer male and masc authors are encouraged to submit.
• Beach reads. Give us your sunny lightweight vacation romp. Set it somewhere pretty, but without the harmful tourism part. People we meet on our ethical, sustainable vacation? Yes please.
• BIPOC historical fiction. Think Harlem Renaissance, Black or Indigenous western, ‘70s disco romance…
• Sports romances that make non-athletes want to watch a game. Olympic romances. Disabled athletes.
• Reality dating show plots. Imagine “The Bachelor” finally casts an Asian lead! Or “Love is Blind” goes pansexual!
• BIPOC romantasy and supernatural—give us dragons, monsters, ghosts, wizards! Could be a small-town cozy grounded witchy vibe, or some epic post-apocalyptic solarpunk polyamorous worldbuilding that helps us envision a more just and inclusive world.
• Main characters who experience chronic illness and/or chronic pain. Lovers who meet each others’ access needs. Help readers imagine new pathways to pleasure in disabled bodies.

IN GENERAL, across all reading periods, we require:

To position a book as romance genre-fiction:

1. The plot must center a romantic relationship
2. While there may be other storylines, the relationship plot should account for at least 60% of the book (preferably more)
3. The relationship lands in a happy place at the end of the book—the couple, throuple, or polycule (surprise us!) are still together, happy for now, and probably heading toward Happily Ever After

• 60k-100k wordcount
• Books written and revised by people (not AI).
• Authors who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and/or disabled.
• Authors who believe in the Generous Press mission and connect with the Generous Press editorial POV. If you are not someone who would buy or borrow our books, we are probably not a good fit for your work.
• Consent. We are not interested in furthering rape culture through narratives that romanticize or sexualize non-consensual power play. If your characters are playing with unequal power dynamics, show us how and why they each choose this. Put agency and kindness on the page.
• Craft. Whether you’re writing a blissfully fluffy romcom, a smutty romp, or a poetic drama, we want to see the care you’ve put into every sentence, paragraph, and chapter. Have you chosen the best words to express what’s happening in any given scene? Is the setting a whole vibe? Do we feel like we know the main characters by the end of the first two chapters? Are the stakes and motives clear? Is there a natural rhythm to the dialogue? We recommend trading your manuscript with other writer friends, submitting excerpts to writing workshops, or using online critique circles to get a sense of how you might improve your work before submitting. Get input on the whole manuscript, not just the first or most polished chapters!
• Clean, edited manuscripts. We understand authors have varying access to professional editing services, and proofreading comes more easily to some than others. That said, please do not submit your manuscript unless you have checked it for spelling and grammatical errors. We recommend reading the work aloud to yourself, running a basic spellcheck in apps like Pages or Microsoft Word, and asking at least one other person to proofread.

Does this align with your approach as an author? Let’s see that manuscript!