South Dakota Book Publishing Services for Books That Stay Available

South Dakota's literary circle is small, which makes it easier to find your way in.

• South Dakota Center for the Book. Run by the South Dakota Humanities Council from its office in Brookings, it is the state's Library of Congress affiliate and picks a South Dakota title for the Great Reads from Great Places display at the National Book Festival. The Council's One Book South Dakota program has had communities reading and discussing the same book since 2003.
• South Dakota Festival of Books. The Humanities Council's fall festival, held in Sioux Falls.
• South Dakota State Poetry Society. Founded in Aberdeen in 1927, it publishes the journal Pasque Petals twice a year, runs annual poetry contests and prints selected full-length collections under its Pasque Press imprint.
• Siouxland Libraries, Sioux Falls. The library system brings authors in for public programs.
• Mitzi's Books, Rapid City. An independent bookstore that opened downtown in 2011. A 2022 Publishers Weekly profile noted that, far from the big author tours, its in-store events tend to feature local writers. Check current hours and events before you go.
• South Dakota Arts Council grants. Individual artists in any discipline can apply. In the 2025-26 cycle, Artist Fellowships paid $5,000 and Artist Project Grants up to $2,000 funded projects with public engagement.

Where we fit in: the festival, the library programs and the poetry society give you readers and honest feedback. We take the finished draft through editing, cover, interior and store setup.

Publishing routes split three ways: a traditional press buys the rights and pays for production but is selective, a hybrid publisher shares costs with the author, and a self-publishing service is paid for its work while the rights, ISBN and income stay with you.

Among publishing companies in South Dakota, two presses focus on the region. The South Dakota Historical Society Press in Pierre accepts nonfiction about the Northern Great Plains and regional children's picture books, but not poetry, historical fiction, genealogy-based work or anything written with AI. Augustana University's Center for Western Studies in Sioux Falls has more than 75 publications to its credit; ask before sending a manuscript.

Put three questions to any service before you sign. Will the ISBN and the store accounts be registered to you? Will royalties be paid to you directly? Is the full price in writing? Kinetic Digital Publishers works on the self-publishing side, and our answer to the first two is yes.

De Smet is the state's best-known literary landmark. Within weeks of Laura Ingalls Wilder's death in 1957, residents founded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, which restored the Surveyor's House in 1967 and today shows visitors the Ingalls family's original homes and school in the "Little Town on the Prairie."

Poetry runs deep as well: Pasque Petals is the oldest official journal in continuous publication of any state society in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.