MISSION

Brain Mill Press discovers immediate, immersive, and urgent books in order to inspire and represent readers everywhere and support a just publishing paradigm.

Brain Mill Press publishes titles by underrepresented authors and applies strong guiding principles to their production and marketing plans with the goal of the widest possible readership and recognition for every book. Our readership archetype is a reader who is voracious, looking for books that provide a mirror and a window, and who reads widely across genres.

Brain Mill Press is:

Story-first.

We lead, in acquisition and production, with the story and its strongest reader advisory appeals to readers.

Inclusive over exclusive.

Brain Mill Press strives to employ, consult, and collaborate with underrepresented voices in the publishing industry. Every effort is made to identify authors, administrators, editors, production professionals, assistants, and interns who have not been traditionally well represented in the publishing industry.

An Invitation, not anxiety.

An invitation welcomes the reader or outlet (bookstore, vendor, library, community) to have a particular reader experience. It provides a connection with a book that delights and inspires the reader to extend that invitation to others looking for a similar experience. We aim to invite readers to have an experience suggested by a book’s explicit and hidden appeals, versus creating messaging designed to harass readers with the fear of missing out.

Readers, not market.

In acquisition, editing, and marketing, the primary concern is powerfully developing, communicating, and centering the reader appeals of our books so that each book finds its own enthusiastic audience. Brain Mill Press recognizes that a primary focus on trends fails to capture the breadth and diversity of existing interests among readers. Our authors write books that create a sense of being seen for readers: “These are the books I’ve always been looking for, and should always have existed.”

Full catalog over niche or region.

We are committed to finding excellent books in all genres. We don’t believe that excellent or representative books fail to exist in any particular genre. A Brain Mill Press book is just as likely to be a romance, a western, a book of poetry, a personal memoir of essays, a graphic novel, a mystery. We acquire titles from authors all over the world with both established and emerging platforms via editors with significant platforms of their own and by managing calls and submissions on Submittable and agent query. BMP receives over 500 submissions a year via editor solicitation, editor call, and agent submission for 10-15 title spots.

Progressive, not conservative.

We find readers where they are (independent bookstores, specific library systems, ebook readers, etc.) and focus on representation in each genre, not representation as genre. We participate in a world of publishing as publishing should have always been, not as an environment that creates institutions and boundaries that limit options. We directly confront the segregation of metadata, classification systems, and shelving, instead progressively forwarding the story-first idea through metadata and appeals that attempt to decolonize shelves and categories.

The Brain Mill

The “brain mill” is the idea of a hand-crafted machine powered by moving energy which brings up what is unseen from beneath and exposes it to the surface, to light, and to admiration. The Brain Mill Press name and watermill-inspired colophon pays tribute to the human subconscious and imagination and its ability to move and animate what we make with tools and innovation.

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