Any publishing houses that accept unsolicited manuscripts?

[Stan M]

I need a publishing company that publishes either nonfiction or hobby/general interest. Is within the state area and accepts unsolicited manuscripts since I don't have an agent. And I can't afford to subscribe to writers market or buy the book because I am broke. I know you're thinking of ways to make extra money but I can't do them. I don't have any bad habits that I spend money on. they don't pay to collect recycling where I live, I own nothing of value and after doing my extremely physically demanding job I don't have the energy to do extra work. I know you're thinking sell your computer but I need my computer. It has my book on it and if my book gets published I will need my computer to write other books.
I live in New Jersey.

[pandemic!]

Only small publishing companies accept unsolicited manuscripts, but even that can be rare. i don't know your location so i can't suggest any. if you're going with a small publishing house, don't expect to sell more than 1000 copies (if that)

[Joss]

If you can't get your hand on Writer's Market (have you checked the library? or a used copy on amazon??) then you're going to have to put in the leg work and start searching the Internet high and low and inside and out to find them. It's an excuse that your job is too demanding. If you have hours to sleep then you can spend an hour of that time doing research every night until you've built a list of agents or publishers. BTW, you have a demanding job, yet you've had time to write a book??? How will you write other books if your job is too demanding that you don't even have time to research publishers and agents (this is less time-consuming than writing & editing a book!!!)? How will you handle the publisher's deadlines for turning in your manuscript on time (usually you do a few rounds of edits before turning in the final draft)?? How will you have time to handle promotion and marketing (you are responsible for this, not your publisher)? You're writing non-fiction how will you have time to build your platform? You do realize you need a platform built BEFORE you contact a publisher?

These are all excuses. If you want to be published then you need to make time. You need to find extra money to buy writer's market or some comparable book or get it from the library. Either that or begin getting up an hour earlier before work to do a bit of research to find publishers. This is if YOU want to be published. Nothing comes easy and it certainly isn't going to be this. I don't know your life situation, but you're not the only writer who lacks time and who works a demanding job, but they make it work because it's their passion to be published and they certainly don't make excuses or ask people to do the leg work for them. No offense to you, though.

This is YOUR book, not mine. I'm not invested in it. The least you should do is tart a twitter account and become active on it and start building your platform. You're not going to get published unless you have one ready to go when you send off your proposal. I know of writers who were rejected outright because they lacked a platform, even though the editor thought their book was great. Platform is everything in non-fiction.

Next, you don't need to live in the same city as the publisher. Basic research will tell you this .You obviously have the Internet or you wouldn't be posting this question. You also have a laptop because you've mentioned it in your post. Now its up to you to do the research. Most large publishers are located in NYC. Most do not take unagented manuscripts, so you might want to start researching and looking for an agent and building your list of agents so you can submit.

Lastly, I did a lot of research on agents and publishers (none non-fiction). I built my list over a couple of years and I found them by doing a LOT of research online and by visiting publishing industry websites, reading articles and researching ALL the publishers that were mentioned in those articles or by other writers to see if they published the type of novel I wrote; I never bought a book with this information nor did I subscribe to publisher's marketplace. Find books that are similar to yours and see who the writer's agent and publisher is (agents are mentioned in the acknowledgements and you might have to google every name until you come across the agent). Publishers are of course listed in the front of the book. If you can't be bothered to do this much then you probably can't be bothered to put in the work needed to be published, and forget about having many books published. You can find literary agents via Agentquery.com and aaronline.org; reread my previous sentence if you can't find the time to do this. Yes, you have to go to each agent's website, read their bios and read their submissions page and see who their clients are and what kinds of books they publish and decide if they're right for your book, and that's how you begin building your book.

Good luck, though to be honest, it doesn't really seem like your passion is in it because of all the excuses and the fact that you want someone to put in hours of research to find you publishers (you don't think we have these publishers on hand do you?) for YOUR novel. Hahahaha. Funny.

If you have the passion then you'll make the time and if you have the talent then I'm sure you'll see your book published. You can always self-publish, too.