Worst Genres for Traditional Publishing

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Writing is a creative process, but publishing is a business. As businesses, the Big Five publishing houses are less likely to publish certain types of books compared to others. In turn, literary agents are less likely to be actively seeking clients who work on these types of projects. However, all hopes of getting published are not lost! In this video, I go over why these genres are hard to publish by the Big Five and where, instead, you can turn to get your stories published.

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GREAT BOOKS ABOUT WRITING/PUBLISHING:

SOME OF MY FAVORITE NOVELS:

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MORE BOOK PUBLISHING ADVICE:

HARD TO PUBLISH GENRES: 
03:36 – Novellas
05:42 – Poetry Collections
07:09 – Short Story Collections
08:57 – Faith-based Books
11:09 – Alternative Publishing Paths

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ABOUT ME:
My name is Alyssa Matesic, and I’m a professional book editor with 7+ years of book publishing and editorial experience. Throughout my career, I’ve held editorial roles across both sides of the publishing industry: Big Five publishing houses and literary agencies. The goal of this channel is to help writers throughout the book writing journey—whether you're working on your manuscript or you're looking for publishing advice.

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MUSIC:
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Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I may earn a commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

[Zoray]

For those interested disclaimers ends at 3:35,
genres are:
novellas, poetry collection, short story collections and at 8:57 faith based books. 11:10 for advice for writer of those genres.

[clintoreilly]

Thanks Alyssa. Can't wait for your newsletters. No pressure. Good things take time. :)

[andyclark]

Helpful advice as always. One thing to know is that literary magazines receive lots of submissions, and the rejection rates are quite high. Just like every other path through the writing process, submitting stories to literary magazines requires persistence and an ability to live with rejection. If the author is serious about pursuing this, they need to be able to let rejections roll off them and move on to the next magazine, though if a rejection has any specific tips, that's a good sign - take them seriously.
Thanks again!

[danielestaub]

Thanks for this information. Have a great day!

[susanramsay]

Thank you for doing this. You have inspired me to continue creative work.

[oldrodeo]

Your content is awesome. I am committed to watching all of you videos. Thank You!

[abhishektodmal]

Thank you so much for your insights, Alyssa. They are helpful, as always, and greatly appreciated :) Lots of love, and warm regards! :)

[chanreka]

Working on a children's adventure book! Appreciate your information as always 😊

[annpippin]

I have read mystery novels my whole life, and now prefer the largest ones, with the most pages and rarely read anything else.

[khironcentauras]

Bravo, Impeccable delivery, 10 out of 10!

[LivDeSantos]

Great video as always! 😊 I am not writing a novel yet as I'm still honing my craft but my genre is magical realism/fabulism. I'm just writing short stories for the time being to practice.

[derekb.]

I'm working on a short story anthology now (with the intention to self publish) and definitely thinking a lot about theming since it'll be a combination of stories I'd written at different points in time plus some new pieces. There might be some stories I need to be ruthless about cutting or excluding from it if they feel really out of place.

[adavis]

Thanks for your video. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm almost finished with the first draft of my novel, with the plot of a sequel sketched out as well.

[vicpso]

Great information! Thorough and concise!

[TheEccentricRaven]

I like your insight into the publishing industry. I'm a novelist currently writing a YA dystopia. Once I feel it is ready, I plan to submit it to traditional publishers. I already have several dream agents and publishers in mind as well as backups.

[lorrainethomas]

I write women's fiction and, while I've only just started to query agents, I was looking at some smaller presses the other day and plan to query some of them, too. It's nice to have options.

[lutherffs]

First! Juts saying your videos are the most helpful publishing/querying content I've ever seen.

[cfharret]

I almost decided to go for 50k words with my current upmarket fiction. Another video of yours convinced me to up the word count. Hopefully it'll help it get representation.

[zurckoni]

Always excellent, insightful content, thank you. Alas, I tick 1 1/2 of your boxes. Fortunately, I've already decided to go the self-publishing route. But, changing the subject, may I share with you some of my insight on your tag-line. ( I'm retired from a career in TV and Music production, and Advertising and Promotion): . Instead of "I'd love to have you around, " which makes me feel a little subservient -- try "I'd love to have you along." which invites me on a journey of discovery. Just my two-cents. I appreciate your knowledge and generosity. Peace.

[joebryantmusic]

This is great, thank you for your content.

Genre of my current work is surrealist or absurdist fiction. Not sure which maybe a mix of both.