My any measure, independent publishing is in a period of tremendous change. Flat sales, higher costs, and distribution and supply chain disruptions have roiled the marketplace. With that in mind, PW spoke with six publishers about how they powered through the turmoil to grow their businesses.
These publishers all share one trait: their founders came from larger houses and discovered ways to at least tweak standard industry practices. Another notable shared characteristic is that two of this year’s profiled companies are subsidiaries of independent U.K. publishers.
Authors Equity
The indie press that has drawn the most attention over the past three years is Authors Equity. The publisher was incorporated in 2023 by three well-known industry veterans, including former Penguin Random House US CEO Madeline McIntosh, but did not publish its first titles until 2024, when it released five books to respectable sales. In 2025, Authors Equity released 24 titles and sales soared 567% over the prior year. The number of employees now stands at 14.
Authors Equity’s breakout hit in 2025 was Joseph Nguyen’s Don’t Believe Everything You Think, which has sold close to one million units across formats and is still doing well more than a year after its release, says Carly Gorga, CMO and deputy publisher. Gorga is quick to note that the company’s success last year was also due to the breadth of its publishing program. In 2025, it released
business and fiction titles, memoirs, and games, and most of its books had sell-through rates of 90% or higher.
The founders of Authors Equity made an important pivot away from traditional publishing: the company doesn’t pay advances but instead guarantees authors at least 60% of their books’ profits—more for authors with large audiences. And while many in the industry call Authors Equity a hybrid publisher, company executives see the business model as profit sharing and make it clear that authors are not expected to help fund marketing efforts or pay anything up front. The authors who do best at Authors Equity are those “willing to bet on themselves and driven to participate,” Gorga says.
Authors Equity designs its marketing campaigns to meet the goals of each author. “For some, we’re maximizing for bestseller status,” Gorga explains. “Others don’t care about lists at all and want to set the book up for long-term sales. Others want something else entirely—cultural impact, speaking careers, brand stainability, legacy.”
Gorga says Authors Equity believes its approach is the right one because it’s seen several authors return with new books and agents continuing to pitch new projects. “This is what we’re most proud of,” she adds.
Familius
Changing distributors is difficult for any publisher, and that was the case for Familius with its recent move to Abrams in 2025. But with the company now firmly in Abrams’s orbit, sales grew 10% last year over 2024. Founder and owner Christopher Robbins says that while he didn’t mind getting involved in distribution details, he now has more time to devote to expanding Familius’s publishing program. And he appreciates the fact that Abrams has good relationships with gift stores, where Familius’s offerings sell well.
The company is best known for its titles for families, which include reference books, children’s books, and hobby books. Familius is also is expanding its Spanish-language program and sidelines, and had a hit last year with Literary Suits: Jane Austen Collection, a mini library of playing card decks, with themed decks for Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility. The cards were so successful Familius will release Literary Suits: Gothic Collection this year.
Even before its relationship with Abrams, Familius did well in nontraditional outlets, and Robbins estimates about 70% of its revenue comes from that channel. To boost sales to those outlets, the company paid closer attention to backlist metadata and discoverability last year while developing a more consistent direct-to-consumer presence with its own social media, podcast, website, and newsletters. International rights sales also gave the company a lift last year, Robbins says.
For 2026, Familius is stepping out of character a bit with How to Save Democracy: The Anti-authoritarian Playbook by Melissa Dalton-Bradford, who provides “short-term and long-term strategies for everyday citizens to reinforce democratic institutions,” according to the publisher.
“Unfortunately, we think this book is going to be much needed over the next few years,” Robbins says.
Nosy Crow
Children’s books publisher Nosy Crow was founded in London in 2010 and launched its U.S. division in 2022 in Boston under the direction of John Mendelson, who had been senior VP of sales at Candlewick Press. With a staff of five, Nosy Crow’s U.S. branch released 34 titles in its first year. Since day one, Mendelson notes, Nosy Crow US has collaborated with Nosy Crow UK on acquisitions, and books acquired by U.K. editors are always fully Americanized for release here—not just the text but the cover and other design elements as well.
One reason Nosy Crow has been able to scale so quickly in the U.S., Mendelson says, is that group CEO Kate Wilson reserved a roster of Nosy Crow UK titles with international appeal for it. Since the launch, the two teams have been working
collaboratively as well, and Mendelson points to the fall 2025 release of This Is Not a Small Voice: Poems by Black Poets as an example of a title that was jointly acquired. Nosy Crow’s fiction team also had a hit stateside with its Dungeon Runners series, which was featured in Barnes & Noble’s 2025 summer reading program.
The collaborative approach has led to a 105% increase in U.S. sales in 2025 compared to 2023, and this year Nosy Crow is launching its U.S.-originated publishing program. First up is the picture book Say Hello Like an Armadillo, written by Zewlan Moor and illustrated by Karen Obuhanych, which will be published simultaneously in the U.K. “As we move forward with our U.S.-originated acquisitions, our aim is for books we acquire to succeed in the U.S. market first, but also to find homes in other markets, both English language and foreign,” Mendelson says.
Penzler Publishers
Mystery book maven Otto Penzler started Penzler Publishers in 2018 with the immediate objective of bringing back print editions of classic mystery books that were then mostly available only as e-books. Penzler released the first six titles under the American Mystery Classics imprint in 2018, and the imprint now publishes 12 annually. While about half of the new releases sell more than 4,000 copies in their first year, reorders for all remain consistent, says Penzler publisher Charles Perry.
The biggest boost to Penzler Publishers’ growth, however, came in 2020, when Otto Penzler quietly bought back Mysterious Press—which he founded in 1975—from Grove Atlantic. The purchase coincided, Perry says, with Penzler “publishing more books and bigger books” by well-known authors, including Lee Child (Reacher), James Comey (FDR Drive), Joyce Carol Oates (48 Clues), and Lisa Unger (Christmas Presents).
This year, Mysterious Press absorbed Penzler’s Scarlett imprint, since the name was similar to an imprint of Simon & Schuster, which recently took over distribution of Penzler titles from Norton.
Penzler’s newest imprint, Crime Ink, was launched in 2023 to focus on true crime books. While the list is still fairly small, Perry points to early successes like The Serial Killer’s Apprentice by Katherine Ramsland and Tracy Ullman, and Jimmy Breslin: The Man Who Told the Truth by Richard Esposito. As a result of the new initiatives, Penzler’s sales doubled in 2025 over 2023, even as its number of employees has remained steady at six.
Pushkin Press US
Another U.S. publisher to benefit from U.K. ownership is Pushkin Press US. After a 10-year relationship, London-based Pushkin Press acquired New Hampshire’s Steerforth Press and its sister company, Hanover Publisher Services, in 2024. And in 2025, Pushkin’s U.S. sales doubled over the prior year. The increase came from new and backlist Steerforth titles, better sell through of Pushkin titles, and increased staffing, says Cate Fricke, publicist for Pushkin Press US.
Steerforth’s top seller last year was Daniel A. Sjursen’s A True History of the United States, which had it highest sales in 2025 after being released in 2021. The imprint also had a bestseller in America’s Best Idea by Randall Balmer. Steerforth’s top title remains I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, which was adapted by Martin Scorcese into The Irishman. Since its acquisition by Pushkin, Steerforth senior editor Chip Fleischer continues to acquire about 10 nonfiction books annually. And this year, Steerforth has become fully integrated into Pushkin Press US as an imprint.
Steerforth’s successes were complemented by higher interest in Pushkin titles, Fricke says. In 2025, about 24 Pushkin books across its adult and children’s imprints were either released simultaneously in the U.S. and U.K. or released first or only in the U.S. as Pushkin Classics editions. In all, Pushkin Press US released a total of 100 new and reissued titles in 2025, compared to 57 in 2023.
The larger title output was accompanied by staffing changes that bolstered the marketing team and added Pushkin’s first U.S.-based adult and children’s publicists. With the extra marketing capacity, Fricke says, Pushkin was able to better take advantage of the growing interest in Japanese crime fiction, which included The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa, Pushkin’s first B&N Pick of the Month.
“We will continue to invest in and grow the U.S. business in the coming years,” says Adam Freudenheim, Pushkin Press publisher and managing director. “Mirroring the success of the London operation, we plan to develop the editorial team, its publishing program, and will be open to acquiring publishing lists or businesses to complement Pushkin Press US.”
Spiegel & Grau
Another successful indie publisher launched by onetime Penguin Random House executives is Spiegel & Grau. The press, which now has 15 employees, has been a model of consistency since co-CEOs Cindy Spiegel and Julie Grau started the company in 2020, a year after PRH closed their imprint of the same name. The publisher reports a 34% sales gain in 2025 over 2024, after posting a 27% increase in 2024.
Bruce Holsinger’s Culpability, an Oprah’s Book Club pick, was Spiegel & Grau’s top new release last year, selling about 185,000 copies, per the publisher. Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl, a 2024 Reese’s Book Club selection, continued to hum last year and has now sold 193,000 copies. Spiegel and Grau have always had an eye for books that will backlist well, so it’s not a surprise that two of their earliest titles remain popular, with Melody Beattie’s Codependent No More selling 602,000 copies and Shelley Read’s Go as a River selling 427,000 copies.
From the start, the founders have looked for titles that can perform in all formats, and have done especially well with audiobooks. They’ve also had success selling film rights, with eight books optioned or under option in deals brokered by Liza Wachter, Spiegel & Grau’s president, director of film and TV. Topping everything off, since it was launched the publisher has generated $5.2 million in rights deals, including for international, book club, and excerpt rights.
Spiegel & Grau has followed the approach of publishing a limited number of titles and devoting its full attention to each one. “There are certainly many challenges to being an indie publisher, but what’s been so rewarding is our ability to focus our efforts and resources on each book on our carefully curated list,” Spiegel says. “Each a book S&G truly believes in. When the entire company is aligned with the author and passionate about the book, we create powerful momentum. We have tremendous faith that our books will find their readership—and they do.”
Spiegel doesn’t see the company’s momentum slowing this year. It has set a 250,000-copy first printing for the May release of Kathryn Stockett’s The Calamity Club, the follow-up to The Help, her blockbuster debut.
