This survey has no authority other than my own ornery wish to help aspiring writers make progress; I'm really a writer, not a surveyor. I am Piers Anthony, known primarily for my Xanth fantasy series, though I also do serious writing. I've had a good deal of experience in the publishing school of hard knocks, hence my interest in making it easier for others. Updates directly from publishers are welcome, and so are comments about those publishers from those who use them. I have no agenda other than reasonable clarity, accuracy and relevance. I take publishers' claims on faith until learning otherwise; then I tell truth without much concern for consequences. I do not check with publishers before running positive or negative feedback on them; this survey is of the nature of a review, and anonymity of sources is maintained. If I may summarize the general gist of publisher responses to bad reviews, it is "You're a liar! We'll sue! Tell us who blabbed so we can destroy them. Who the hell are you to make such judgments anyway?!" To which I reply "Tough feces, folk. Clean up your act." But when, on rare occasion, the publisher turns out to have the right of it, I will grudgingly amend my entry next update.

I posted spot updates called to my attention, as shown in color. Routine checking of sites is getting so slow on my dial-up that I have had to stop it, and just update as I learn about things. January 2022 update: two new entries. Those who encounter dead links are welcome to let me know; I'll check and either get them corrected or noted as defunct. This time there are a slew we are in the process of handling. October 2018 update: Thanks to Ara Seferian for vetting the entire list here to point out invalid links. These were disabled, although we leave the original address for reference. I received a plea for publishers to get together and standardize their submission guidelines. Some accept single-spaced documents, some want 1.5-spaced, some double-spaced. Some want MS Word .doc, others .rtf. Some want no page numbers, some want chapter breaks, some want no words in CAPITALS, some want nothing underlined. Some want one space after each sentence, others require two spaces. I've seen publishers state that if their particular formats are not followed to the letter, submissions will be deleted unread. What to do? My inclination is to do it my way, which was good enough for traditional publishers for 40 years, or moderately adapted for electronic format, and any electronic publisher who objects can do without my business. Let the publisher change the format to please itself. If someone cares to offer a standardized format, I'll be happy to run it here. Then maybe publishers will start saying "Standardized Format Accepted" and the problem will fade as uncooperative publishers stop receiving submissions.