Open Access Book Prizes

Yes! We welcome open access monographs in all categories that were published in English between 2019 and 2024. Note that publishers must submit all nominations. Authors may not submit books independently.

We understand that digital publications are typically very collaborative in nature. While monographs are often single-authored, text-based works, multimodal digital projects may feature a variety of content types and contributors.

For all competition categories, the monograph is defined as a long-form scholarly argument on a single subject in the humanities or interpretative social sciences. The argument should offer a unique contribution to the field and be clearly articulated by the author(s).

Media types other than text (e.g., images, audiovisual resources, data visualizations) in a multimodal monograph should contribute directly to the work’s single, sustained argument. Edited collections, in which contributors present a variety of arguments around a single theme, are not considered monographs. Neither are scholarly editions, in which one or more authors offer commentary/analysis on an original source text. Digital media or archival collections presented without an explicit long-form argument are not considered monographs for the purposes of this competition.

Born-digital monographs are pushing the boundaries of what a monograph can be. We will continue to refine our expectations for the multimodal category in subsequent years of the competition.

The questions in the Scholarly Impact and Accessibility section of the application are intentionally open ended. We understand that publishers have differing levels of access to tools that provide metrics, and that these tools continue to change over time. We encourage the inclusion of numbers when they are readily available, but we also welcome qualitative data that help us to better understand the publication’s reach and audience engagement.

The review process involves three steps:

1. Eligibility review. ACLS staff members review each submission for adherence to eligibility requirements, including copyright year, prize category, status as immediate open access, and distribution on at least two distinct platforms. Ineligible titles are withdrawn from further consideration. Any publisher submitting more than the allowed maximum in any category will be disqualified from the competition.
2. First-round review. For each category a five-member panel of scholars, librarians, digital humanities experts, and accessibility specialists review and score the eligible submissions. Each book is first assigned to two panelists who independently evaluate the quality and impact of the author’s scholarship, as well as the press’s open access publishing practices. Next the entire panel convenes to determine the top five finalists, which progress to the second round of competition.
3. Second-round review. For each category a three-member panel evaluates the finalists based on scholarly quality/impact and open access publishing practices. All three panelists read each finalist title in its entirety before convening to select the winner.

This prize competition was developed to celebrate impactful humanistic scholarship that is published in open and accessible ways. As a dual award, it seeks to recognize and promote the work of both authors and publishers. But this evaluation can be challenging, given that open access book publishing practices are not standardized, vary dramatically among presses, and are often invisible to readers. The questions on the form provide necessary insights to help the reviewers understand and evaluate each submission in the absence of clear industry norms.

The first three years of the prize competition (2024-2026) serve as a pilot program. What we learn during the pilot about evolving open access book publishing practices will inform decisions around eligibility and evaluation for future iterations of the prize.

We understand that the form is longer than usual for book prize competitions! But we do not charge an entry fee (or require shipping of a physical book), and we offer an award amount that is substantially larger than most other book prizes. We hope these features help to offset the additional work required to submit nominations.

Remember that this is a dual award! Providing clear evidence in your submission not only of the book’s scholarly contributions and impact but also of accessible publishing practices is key.

A few tips to consider when completing the submission form:

• Provide succinct but specific answers to all questions. Vague responses–such as “not applicable” or “our usual marketing practices”–will suffer in comparison with more robust and detailed answers in other submissions. Panelists appreciate responses that relate directly to the book they are evaluating.
• Consider how your responses correspond to a reader’s actual experience. For example, a buried or absent link to the open access edition from the publisher’s website may seem inconsistent with claims of robust promotion for the OA book.
• Ensure that all links to the submission are working during the evaluation period. Reviewers navigate to and evaluate various aspects of each submission in the live online environment, and the entire review process runs from March through August. 
• Similarly, ensure that internal links, navigation features, or other digital affordances within each submission are working properly.

No. Publishers must submit all entries, which must be published monographs. Unpublished manuscripts are not eligible.

But we encourage you to contact your editor about the possibility of entering the competition if you published an eligible open access monograph between 2019 and 2024.

All open access books are digital, and most take the form of a conventional e-book.

The distinction is that open access books are available to readers completely free of charge.

An e-book that is only available for purchase or through a subscription or institutional affiliation is not open access.