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Who this is for: researchers deciding whether and how to publish with Wiley, and research administrators who need to know what “Wiley”, “Wiley-Blackwell” and “Wiley Online Library” each refer to. After reading you should be able to name the company and its imprints, find the right journal route, and follow the author steps Wiley documents. Facts below are as stated on Wiley’s own pages on 2026-11-07 unless a different date is given.
What it is
What is Wiley?
Wiley is John Wiley & Sons, a global publisher of research journals, books and databases, and of learning materials. Its investor page describes it as “a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence” with “more than 200 years” in the scholarly ecosystem. “Wiley and Sons” in a search is the same company: the copyright line on wiley.com reads “John Wiley & Sons, Inc., or related companies”.
Three names are easy to confuse:
- Wiley: the company and its main site, wiley.com.
- Wiley-Blackwell: described on the blackwellpublishing.com page as “the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons”. That page sends readers to Wiley Online Library for online journal content.
- Wiley Online Library: the platform for Wiley journal content; wiley.com lists it as “9M+ articles, chapters & reference works”.
Who runs it and what it covers
Who owns Wiley?
Wiley is a publicly traded company: its investor-relations page identifies it as “Wiley (NYSE: WLY)”, and that page links to annual reports, quarterly results and SEC filings, which are the place to look for ownership and governance detail. The same page gives a Hoboken, New Jersey, address (111 River Street) for investor contact, which answers most “Wiley publisher location” searches for the corporate side.
Which journals does Wiley publish?
Wiley’s research page groups its content into four subject areas: Health Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences & Humanities. It states that Wiley “publishes 2000+ journals and partners with over 1000 scholarly societies”. Other named research products on wiley.com include the Cochrane Library (systematic reviews), Current Protocols (peer-reviewed laboratory methods), Scholar Gateway and Wiley Digital Archives, plus the “Advanced” family of journals; a 28 September 2026 press release announces two new titles in it, Advanced Medicine and Advanced Healthy Aging.
A caution on journal counts. Wiley’s own pages give different totals: “2000+ journals” on the research page, “1,800+ journals” in the Journal Finder text on the Publish page, and “nearly 1,500 peer-reviewed journals” on the Wiley-Blackwell page. Treat any single figure as the count on the day that page was written, and use the Journal Finder or the journal’s own page to confirm a specific title is a Wiley journal.
Open access runs through both fully open access and hybrid titles. Wiley’s open access page describes “fully open access journals and hybrid journals with open access options”, the Forward Series of open access journals, and separate pages for Institutional Payments and Waivers & Discounts. For how those models differ in general, see gold, green, diamond and hybrid open access compared.
How to search or use it
How to submit a paper in Wiley?
Wiley’s “Journal Authors” page lays the route out in stages: Find a Journal, Prepare, Submission & Peer Review, Licensing, Open Access, Publication, Promote. In order:
- Find a journal. Use Wiley’s Journal Finder, or the “Find a Journal” link on the Journal Authors page. If you are still choosing between venues, our guide to choosing a journal covers fit and checks that apply to any publisher.
- Check open access funder rules. The Journal Authors page lists a tool to “crosscheck OA funder mandate compliance” before you submit.
- Prepare the manuscript. Wiley’s “Preparing Your Manuscript” page says to follow your journal’s author guidelines and to review its preparation resources, which cover language and formatting, supporting information, figures, publication ethics, and data sharing and citation policies.
- Register with ORCID. The Journal Authors page lists “Register with ORCID iD to get credit for your work” under Submission & Peer Review.
- Submit the article and data online, then follow the peer review guidance Wiley links from the same section.
- After acceptance, return proofs. The Publication Process page tells the corresponding author to review proofs, answer editor queries and return them within 48 hours. Proofing is for errors such as typographical mistakes or section numbering; the page says Wiley “does not support making material changes to the content of the manuscript”.
- Sign the licence and settle any charge. Choose and sign your publication licence through Wiley Authors, and pay any applicable Article Publication Charge (APC) if you publish open access. The page notes you may qualify for an institutional, geographic or society discount or full APC coverage. Publication then follows on Wiley Online Library.
You do not need to look for a separate login after acceptance: the Publication Process page says to check your email inbox for the link to Wiley Authors, where you can also track the article through production.
How does journal publishing work?
In Wiley’s documented version: you submit to a journal, the article goes through peer review, and an accepted article moves to production, where you check proofs, sign a licence and, if the article is open access, pay any APC before it appears online. Steps 5 to 7 above are that sequence as Wiley describes it. Individual journals set their own scope and guidelines, which is why the journal’s author guidelines come before anything else. If your journal’s submission system is named in those guidelines, our comparison of Editorial Manager, ScholarOne and OJS explains what the common systems do.
Strengths and limits
How credible is the Wiley Online Library?
Credibility is a property of each journal, not of the platform. Wiley Online Library hosts journals from many scholarly societies and different editorial boards, so check the title you intend to cite or publish in: its editorial board, its peer review statement, and whether it appears in the indexes that matter in your field (our guide to DOAJ, Scopus and Web of Science indexing shows how to look). Wiley states that it publishes ethics guidance for authors, editors and reviewers, and its Prepare page cites its “Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics”.
The record also includes a serious episode. Wiley acquired Hindawi in 2021, and in 2023 more than 8,000 Hindawi articles were retracted, a figure Retraction Watch reported from Wiley’s December 2023 disclosure (checked 2026-07-18). Our guide to the Hindawi retractions sets out the timeline. We give no overall verdict on Wiley; use the journal-level checks above.
Strengths documented on Wiley’s pages: partnerships with over 1000 scholarly societies; both fully open access and hybrid routes; published APC discount and waiver pages; and one set of author pages that runs from journal selection to post-publication promotion.
Limits to plan for: an open access article may carry an APC; journal totals differ between Wiley pages; the proof stage does not allow material content changes, so methodology and results must be final at acceptance; and the author guidelines differ by journal, so no single page covers every Wiley title.
Alternatives
Wiley is one of several large publishers. These CASRAI pages compare it with others on specific tasks:
| If you need to compare | Publishers covered | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Cover letters | Nature, Elsevier, Wiley, Springer | Cover letters by publisher |
| Data-sharing policies | Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, MDPI | Data-sharing policy compared |
| Open access models | Model-level, not publisher-level | Gold vs green vs diamond vs hybrid |
| Choosing a venue at any publisher | Publisher-neutral | How to choose a journal |
FAQ
What is Wiley?
John Wiley & Sons, a publicly traded publisher of journals, books and databases; Wiley-Blackwell is its scientific, technical, medical and scholarly publishing business.
Who owns Wiley?
It is listed on the NYSE as WLY; its investor-relations page links to SEC filings and annual reports for ownership detail.
How to submit a paper in Wiley?
Find a journal with the Journal Finder, follow that journal’s author guidelines, then submit the article and data online; the seven steps above give the full sequence.
How credible is the Wiley Online Library?
Assess the individual journal, not the platform; the Hindawi retractions show why journal-level checks matter.
How does journal publishing work?
Submission, peer review, then production with proofs, licence and any APC before publication online.
Which journals does Wiley publish?
Journals across health, life, physical and social sciences and humanities; Wiley’s pages give counts of 2000+, 1,800+ and nearly 1,500 depending on the page.
Sources
- Wiley, “Research”: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/research (checked 2026-11-07)
- Wiley, “About us”: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/about-us (checked 2026-11-07)
- Wiley, “Publish your article”: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/publish/article (checked 2026-11-07)
- Wiley, “Open Access”: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/publish/article/open-access (checked 2026-11-07)
- Wiley Author Services, “Journal Authors”: https://authors.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/index.html (checked 2026-11-07)
- Wiley Author Services, “Preparing Your Manuscript”: https://authors.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/Prepare/index.html (checked 2026-11-07)
- Wiley Author Services, “Publication Process”: https://authors.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/Publication/index.html (checked 2026-11-07)
- Wiley-Blackwell: https://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ (checked 2026-11-07)
- Wiley Investor Relations: https://investors.wiley.com/ (checked 2026-11-07)
- Retraction Watch, “Hindawi reveals process for retracting more than 8,000 paper mill articles”: https://retractionwatch.com/2023/12/19/hindawi-reveals-process-for-retracting-more-than-8000-paper-mill-articles/ (checked 2026-07-18)
