Note: This article was initially published in April, 2014, updates were made in January and February 2015.
I’m updating it on November 20th 2019 to say that they seem to be no longer open to submissions and serving a very different purpose, if they are around at all. Consider defunct.
Alloy Entertainment is a large company that has been responsible for a number of successful books, including The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the Gossip Girl series. The books they publish tend to be aimed at a young female audience. They are not a traditional publisher, they are a book-packaging and a television production unit of Warner Bros.
As of late 2016 they appear to be closed to new unsolicited submissions. They did not make an announcement to that end but the bulk of their website content is removed, which mostly leaves it with just a landing page with the logo, their address, and a general email address. The rest of this article is still up in the hope that this will change.
A company like Alloy is very commercial and they are aggressive about turning their books into movies and TV shows. So it is worth keeping those angles in mind when submitting. If your book is accepted Alloy acts as your agent in regards to potential movie and TV deals. Obviously, those ties to Warner Bros are significant in this aspect.
Alloy does not always publish under their name. One of their books this year is being published by an imprint of Harper Collins. Some of this information is confusing, but the simple facts are this: Alloy is a company with a good reputation that really supports their authors. This is the most important thing.
Alloy has a distinct arm that is interested in authors without agents and open to books from new authors. This part of the company is called the Collaborative Initiative. If you submit to Alloy, you will be submitting to the Collaborative Initiative.
The Collaborative Initiative is interested in acquiring up to twelve full or partial manuscripts a year. To submit directly without an agent you need to send them a query letter with a description of your manuscript, how close it is to completion (if it is not yet finished), and a little bit about your writing background. Also send five pages from your manuscript. You submit all this via email.
They will try to respond within a month. Although I have heard wait times can stretch up to three months. If they decide that they are interested in your work they will email you a request to see the rest of the manuscript. Alloy is one of the few publishers that does not require your manuscript to be complete before you submit. They are not interested in manuscripts that are simultaneously submitted elsewhere.
Since originally writing this review Alloy made a major change to their bushiness model. They now have a secondary way of submitting called Alloy Entertainment – Powered by Amazon.
This division is open to previously self published work. They are trying to focus on publishing fresh, new voices, and stories with strong, unique concepts. They are open to stand alone novels as well as series.
One of the major differences with this branch of Alloy is that they are a digital-first imprint, which means their books are distributed as eBooks first, with the potential for print runs. They have a much quicker turnaround because of this.
Amazon provides marketing support for this imprint and these books are only available on the kindle marketplace.
If you have written a compelling book for girls or for teenage women, you should really consider submitting to Alloy. To learn more visit their website here.
