E-Publisher Acceptance Rates

by Karen Wiesner

Note: This is an update of my annual article, using the new statistics.

A lot of people make the misassumption that most e-publishers are more intent on building their inventory than building a quality inventory; that they're not willing to publish quality content if it means accepting less. Therefore, most e-publishers will accept anything. Is it true? Well, look at the following statistics and see if there's a lot of truth to this assumption:

{Note: All submission and acceptance numbers are estimates given by the publisher. Unless otherwise stated, acceptance rates are based on monthly percentages. Acceptance rate percentages were calculated by taking the number of submissions/acceptances, dividing acceptance rate by submissions and multiplying by 100 in the case of monthly acceptance rate. To figure those who publish only a certain number of books per year, the number of mss. submitted monthly was calculated and then multiplied by 12 to estimate the annual submission rate, an average of submissions/acceptances was taken, acceptance rate was divided by submission, then multiplied by 100. In the case where the publisher wasn't specific enough, such as "receives 25-50 submissions per month; accepts 2-3", a median was taken for each, acceptance rate was divided by submission, multiplied by 100 to get the percentage, then rounded to the nearest whole number. So 25-50 submissions = 37.5; 2-3 accepted = 2.5, 2.5/37.5 = 0.06666666 x 100 = 7% acceptance rate.}

Antelope Publishing receives between ten to twenty per month with many more queries; about five new books per year plus a number of copyright books. (3% acceptance rate)

Artemis Press receives an average of 15 submissions per month; out of that, accepts 5. (33% acceptance rate)

ArwenBooks receives 20+ submissions per month; of these accepts 1-2 (max). (8% acceptance rate)

Booklocker.com's number of submissions varies greatly; publishes less than 10% of incoming mss.

Books Unbound E-Publishing Co. receives 20 submissions per month; publishes 3. (15% acceptance rate)

Boson Books receives an average of 20 submissions per month; accepts 12 submissions per year. (5% acceptance rate)

Crowsnest Books receives about 5 new e-book submissions a month. About a third of these might be asked to do a re-write and re-submit.

CyclopsMedia.com accepts an average of about one e-book for publication every month; accepts all manuscripts represented by a literary agent or print publisher. (100% acceptance rate)

Denlinger's Publishers, Ltd. averages 400 received; 2% accepted per month.

Disc-Us Books, Inc. receives approximately 10 queries a day; have published 40 books (since opening in November 1998) and have another 10 titles in production or under contract.

DiskUs Publishing receives 150-300 submissions per month, depending on the month; acceptance rate is approximately 3%.

DLSIJ Press receives 20-30 submissions per month, accepts 1-2 per month. (6% acceptance rate)

Eastgate Hypertext Reading Room accepts 1 or 2 a year.

Eastgate Systems, Inc. receives 200 submissions per year; accepts 2-3 titles per year. (1% acceptance rate)

Ebookland on line book store and publisher receives 30 submissions per month; publishes 3-5. (13% acceptance rate)

Echelon Press receive 30 to 40 submissions per month; accepts 3-5. (11% acceptance rate)

E-dition receives 12 submissions per month; accept 3. (25% acceptance rate)

Ellora's Cave Romantica E-Publishing receives 100-120 submissions per month; accepts 6 to 8. (6% acceptance rate)

Embiid Publishing receives 6 submissions per month; accepts 3. (50% acceptance rate)

E-Pub2000 receives about 50 submissions per month; accepts 1. (2% acceptance rate)

Fairgo E-Books receives three submissions per month; accepts usually 100% per month.

Great American Publishing Society {GR.AM.P.S.} accepts less than 5% of submissions.

Hard Shell Word Factory receives 150-300 submissions per month; accepts 3 to 5% per month. (3 to 5% acceptance rate)

Hollow Hills Publishing receives 20 submissions per month; accepts 1. (5% acceptance rate)

HyperTech Media, Inc. currently receives about 10 submissions per month; accepts about 10% per month.

Jacobyte Books receives an average of 20 submissions per month; 5-10% acceptance per month.

London Circle Publishing receives 25-30 submissions per month; currently accepting 4-6. (18% acceptance rate)

Lone Wolf Publications' open anthologies draw an average of 300 submissions. In a given month, they might receive 10 queries regarding single author collections or an audio title. 5 to 7% are accepted for open anthologies; 2% for collections or audio titles.

LTDBooks receives 10-15 submissions per month; 1-2 are accepted per month. (12% acceptance rate)

Lybrary.com receives 2 submissions per month; 1 is accepted. (50% acceptance rate)

MoonlitBooks.com receives 10+ submissions per month; accepts less than 1. (less than 10% acceptance rate)

Mushroom eBooks receives about 25 submissions a month; currently accepts 1 or 2 per month. (6% acceptance rate)

NovelBooks, Inc. receives 30 submissions per month; accepts 1. (3% acceptance rate)

PocketPCpress receives 100+ submissions per month; accepts 3 or less. (less than 3% acceptance rate)

Port Town Publishing receives 5 submissions per month; accepts 1. (20% acceptance rate)

Private Ice Publications receives 1 to 5 submissions per year; accepts 2 to 3 per year. (roughly 50% acceptance rate)

Publish4U.com receives 12 submissions per month; accepts 2. (17% acceptance rate)

Puff Adder Books receives 50-100 submissions per month; accepts 1 to 3. (3% acceptance rate)

Salvo Press receives 60 submissions per month; accepts less than 1 per month. (2% acceptance rate)

SANDS Publishing receives 30 to 50 submissions per month; accepts 3 to 5. (10% acceptance rate)

Sensory Publishing, Inc. publishes 1 out of 75 books submitted. (1 _% acceptance rate)

Sirius Publications receives 20 submissions per month; accepts 1 per month. (5% acceptance rate)

SMC Publishing receives 2 to 3 submissions per month; accepts 1 or 2 per month. (60% acceptance rate)

Spilled Candy Books acquires roughly 10% of submissions.

SunnySide Up Publishing receives 15 submissions per month; accepts 7. (47% acceptance rate)

SynergEbooks.com receives hundreds of submissions per year; accepts less than 30% of those received

Treble Heart Books receives 10-20 submissions per month; accepts 3 to 4. (23% acceptance rate)

Twilight Times Books currently receives about 30 submissions a month; accepts 1 submissions. (3% acceptance rate)

Waltsan Publishing LLC receives 100 submissions per month with 2-3 accepted for publication. (2% acceptance rate)

Wellness Institute, Inc./Selfhelpbooks.com receives 10 submissions per month; 5 accepted per month. (50% acceptance rate)

Wildside Press receives 40 to 50 submissions per month; accepts 2 to 3. (6% acceptance rate)

Wings ePress, Inc. receives 15 to 20 submissions per month; accepts a third or a half of them. (42% acceptance rate)

Writer's Exchange E-Publishing receives 10 submissions per month; 90% acceptance.

XC Publishing receives 20 submissions per month; about 1 acceptance in 20. (5% acceptance rate)

Zander eBooks receives 5 manuscripts per month; current acceptance rate is about 10%.

23 House receives 5 to 10 submissions per month; accepts 1 at most. (less than 13% acceptance rate)

I haven't compared these acceptance rates to those of traditional publishers, but I think you'd find that print publishers are all over the place too. The comparison should be done from amount of submissions to acceptance rate for each individual publisher. As you can see, an overwhelming majority of these statistics blow the "e-publishers accept anything" misconception out of the water! It's time to stop perpetuating myths about the industry and deal only with the facts.

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