I investigated this for a workshop I gave and all the lists online seem to be out of date, so here are all the ones I could find divided by size/ influence. If I’ve wrongly classified any or if you know of any others, however small and/ or local, please let me know by email or in comments on any post (as I can’t work out how to reopen the comments below).
Large ELT publishers
Cambridge English
https://www.cambridge.org/jp/cambridgeenglish – LINK UPDATED
Macmillan English
https://www.macmillanenglish.com/jp
Oxford University Press English Language Teaching
https://elt.oup.com/?cc=gb&selLanguage=en&mode=hub
Pearson Languages (including Longman and Penguin)
https://www.pearson.com/languages
Local parts of big ELT publishers (also publishing their own titles)
Macmillan LanguageHouse (Japan)
(don’t seem to have a website anymore, but there might be a Twitter account and/ or Facebook page)
Smaller ELT parts of large or largish publishers
Barrons
McGraw-Hill ELT (but site no longer has ELT section…)
National Geographic Learning (part of Cengage, now seemingly incorporating Heinle ELT – which itself took over LTP – and Summertown Publishing)
Collins ELT
https://collins.co.uk/pages/elt
Scholastic ELT (especially readers)
https://shop.scholastic.co.uk/elt
Black Cat readers (readers in many languages)
https://www.blackcat-cideb.com/en
Wiley English as a Second Language titles
https://www.wiley.com/en-sg/shop/general-foreign-languages/english-as-a-second-language-c-FL70
Kaplan Publishing (ESOL stuff seems to be only TOEFL)
Medium-sized ELT publishers
Richmond (formerly Richmond Publishing, part of large Spanish publisher Santillana)
Express Publishing
https://www.expresspublishing.co.uk/en
Small but influential ELT publishers
DELTA Publishing
https://www.expresspublishing.co.uk/en
Helbling Languages
https://www.helbling.com/int/en
Garnet Education
https://www.garneteducation.com
ABAX
Pavilion Publishing (publisher of Modern English Teacher and English Teaching Professional magazines)
https://pavpub.com/pavilion-elt
Mainly or entirely academic publishers
Michigan English Language Teaching
https://press.umich.edu/English-Language-Teaching
Routledge Language and Linguistics
Multilingual Matters
https://www.multilingual-matters.com
Taylor and Francis ESL and Applied Linguistics Professional Series
(apparently all now moved to Routledge)
Smaller ELT publishers that I don’t know the influence of
Alphabet Publishing Books
https://www.alphabetpublishingbooks.com/
Wayzgoose Press
https://www.wayzgoosepress.com
Prosperity Education
https://www.prosperityeducation.net
MM Publications
https://www.mmpublications.com
Global ELT (exam materials)
Language Solutions
(link broken)
Alta Book Centre Publishers
(seems to have disappeared)
ELB Publishing
(seems to have disappeared)
Pro Lingua Learning
https://www.prolingualearning.com/
Apricot (Japan-based publisher of materials for primary and pre-school, including fabulous picture books)
https://www.apricot-plaza.co.jp/en/index.html
Compass Publishing (Korea, Japan and Taiwan)
WorldCom EFL Books (Korea)
https://www.worldcomedu.com/worldcom-edu-books/worldcom-edu-books-4/?ckattempt=3
RIC Publications EFL, TEFL and LOTE
https://www.ricpublications.com.au/english
Athelstan
EFL publishers that only focus on one country
EFL Press (Japan)
Ernst Klett Verlag (Germany)
https://www.klett.de/willkommen
Ones I know nothing about, not even the size
iTDi Publishing
https://itdi.pro/community/publishing/
University of Daytona Publishing ELT
(link broken)
Prime Press
https://primepress.com/categories/english-courses/
Hodder Education English
https://www.hachettelearning.com/english
Kinney Brother’s Publishing
https://www.kinneybrothers.com
ELI Graded Readers
Grivas Publications
TESOL Bookstore
https://www.tesol.org/professional-development/publications-and-research/tesol-publications
ELT publishers that were taken over (see above for more details on the publishers who took them over)
NorthStar ELT – Bought out by Collins, part of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Harper Collins
LTP – Taken over by Heinle, who were taken over by Cengage, who seem to be rebranding their ELT stuff as National Geographic Learning
Peter Collin Publishing – Taken over by Blackwell, who now seem to be called Wiley
Summertown – Taken over by Cengage (see above)
Heinle ELT – see above
Marshall Cavendish – ditto
Defunct ELT publishers (in case you are still looking for them)
Chancerel International Publishers
Georgian Press
Click on the ELT publishing category below for much more industry news and tips on getting published, and actual articles on the topic here.
Updated 19 October 2026
Please do add the wonderful Vermonters at http://www.prolinguaassociates.com/
Thanks. Just added to the much expanded 2nd draft.
About 6 more added to the third draft. Keep feedback coming!
You could add ELI Publsihing. Over forty years’ history of producing course books, grammars, supplementary materials, graded readers, language games, magazines from A1 to C1 level, from primary to University students
Please also add Grivas Publications http://www.grivas.gr
Great list! Not sure it’s always clear, but Routledge belongs to Taylor and Francis :) (I used to work for them!)
Thank you for the great list – it was so helpful to me since I’m trying to sell copyrights or find distributors.
Please can you move Pavilion Publishing out of just being a magazine publisher into small but influential? They have a very successful ETpedia series of teaching resources books and a growing list of Teaching English titles (methodology books), and the number of publications are growing. Thank you! :-)
Done (finally!)
Useful similar list here: https://eltplanning.com/2020/07/26/finding-work-as-a-writer/