[Alternating Current Press]: Book-Length Nonfiction Manuscripts

This is a book-length open-reading period of Alternating Current Press. Please know what it is before submitting.

We’re seeking book-length manuscripts of creative nonfiction, literary memoir, essay collections, or hybrid. We especially want to hear from marginalized and underrepresented authors, and we are an LGBTQUIA2+ safe-space.

Selected manuscripts receive book publication on Alternating Current Press, which includes distribution through Ingram, Asterism, and all major online retailers.

Submissions open: Year-round

Selections made: Within 6 months

Publication: 2027/2028

• Manuscripts may be in any genre or style. Choose the category of best fit.
• Manuscripts must be geared toward an adult readership. We do not publish books for children.
• All work must be in English and must be the author’s own. Single work by multiple authors considered. We do not consider A.I.-generated work.
• These manuscripts are not read incognito. It doesn’t matter if your identifying information is (or isn’t) inside your submission file, as long as your Submittable contact information is correct.
• If you need to adjust a submission, please use the Request to Edit option through Submittable. Please don’t request to edit for minor flaws, however—all accepted work will go through an editing process and will have the chance to be updated before publication, and your work will not be disqualified for a missing comma.
• All authors must be at least 18 to submit.
• Simultaneous submissions allowed. Please withdraw your manuscript through Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere.
• Collections that contain previously published pieces are considered.
• Submit via Submittable only. We do not accept email submissions. Please note that we have rolling submissions that sometimes close at the end of one month and reopen at the beginning of the next month to help us regulate flow. If the portal isn’t open, please don’t email us; just come back later.
• Straight or scholarly nonfiction should have proper citations.
• There is a $12.99 fee for each manuscript submitted. You may submit as many manuscripts as you’d like, but each one must be submitted separately with a separate fee. The fee helps us with needed administration and book production costs, and we pay our readers for their time and effort, but it’s not meant to be too inhibitive. If you are unable to pay, please email us for an alternative submission method.
• Each paid submission comes with a digital copy of our latest nonfiction book, currently The Uncertainty Principle: Essays on Infertility, Conception, Birth, and Quantum Mechanics by Joel Wachman ($7.99 value). There is an additional option to purchase the winning Electric Book Award print book (publishing in 2027/2028) as an add-on for a deep discount ($6.99 off the final cover price, U.S. shipping only). If there is no winner selected for a chosen year, advance book purchases will roll over to the next year. If you purchase this option, please make sure to keep your Submittable mailing address current in your profile.
• We will send a response to every submission, and we try our best to respond within 6 months. Form response only, unless we are interested in publishing your book. We are regretfully unable to provide feedback. If you have not heard back after 6 months, please feel free to follow up (kindly), but more than likely, we’re just running behind, so thank you for your patience.
• All manuscripts submitted through this portal automatically qualify for the annual Electric Book Award, with no separate submission process. Please see the EBA website page for more information.
• We acknowledge that we are headquartered on what should be Arapaho land with a warehouse on a street that is instead named for a dead white male president who owned enslaved people and severed Native American Nations apart irrevocably and an office on a street named after the very People whose land was stolen. To honor the reparations that this entire country needs to make, Black writers and Native American Indigenous (United States and Canada) writers may submit appropriate manuscripts for free to this open-reading period (please note that if the portal is not open, then we have reached our free-submission monthly cap until the beginning of the next month).

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