Pardes Press is a boutique neo-publisher founded in 2026. We publish a small number of carefully curated titles each year — historical fiction, biographies, memoirs, and any work of literary merit that earns its place on the list. Every book we accept is read in full by a human editor, and every manuscript that comes our way gets the same attention.
What we publish
Our list leans toward historical fiction, narrative non-fiction, and memoirs that read like the best novels — but we keep the door open for the unusual. If a manuscript is good, we'd rather find an audience for it than pass on it because "the marketing department" wouldn't know which shelf to put it on.
We publish in three editions: print-on-demand (so we never kill a tree for a copy that someone may never read), ebook, and audiobook. Most titles land in all three; some only in two. Pricing is the publisher's choice, not the platform's.
For authors
We are happy to work with first-time authors. We don't require a literary agent. Submissions are open year-round — name, email, and the full manuscript as a PDF or Word file is all we need. There is no submission fee.
As an alternative to creating your manuscript with a traditional word processor, you can use our web-based writing tool, which includes features to help you manage your ideas, characters, and research notes. It's designed to be a distraction-free writing environment that keeps everything organised in one place.. We're also building a set of AI-assisted tools to help authors with editing and receivng feedback during the drafting process. Those tools are an adjunct to human craft, not a substitute for it: our policies are explicit that work primarily generated by an AI is not eligible for publication.
For readers
Buy a book and you own it. Ebooks are DRM-free. Audiobooks stream from your library and come with backup download links that don't expire for a month. We don't sell your email, run analytics on your reading behaviour, or use your purchase history for anything other than re-sending your downloads.
Why "Pardes"
Our name "Pardes" is derived from the Old Persian word for a walled garden — the same root that gave English "paradise" — and a four-layered tradition of reading in medieval Jewish hermeneutics, from the surface meaning of a text down to its hidden ones. A good book is both: an enclosed world you step into, with more depth than the first reading reveals. That is what we're trying to publish.
Get in touch
Submit a manuscript, write to us directly, or subscribe to the newsletter from the bottom of any page — You'll hear from us a few times a month, no more.