Open Book Publishers Blog

Reputation, reputation, reputation – quality control and reward systems

In the past, Open Access publishing has been accused of being akin to vanity publishing or self-publishing, while the term ‘predatory publishing’ describes a phenomenon in which a publisher charges expensive fees for guaranteed publication while failing to provide peer review or even basic editing.[1] Reputable Open Access publishers

Copyright and licensing – what do I need to know?

When you create original work, you possess the copyright.[1] When you wish to publish that work, some publishers might ask you to sign the copyright over to them as a condition of publication, so that they can disseminate the work exclusively and therefore maximise its profitability. However, you do

Green, Gold, Diamond, Black – what does it all mean?

There’s a lot of jargon surrounding Open Access publication, and as with all jargon it can confuse and obfuscate. Here is a simple glossary: Diamond / PlatinumImmediate Open Access publication by the journal or book publisher without payment of a fee. Copyright may be retained by the author and permission

APCs, BPCs, can I have some money please – who pays for OA?

This is one of the most important questions for authors: if the reader doesn’t pay, who does? BPCs (Book Processing Charges) and APCs (Article Processing Charges) are fees levied on authors, their institutions or their funding bodies to pay for Open Access publishing (also known as author-side fees). It’

What should I ask a publisher about Open Access?

There are many academic publishers who publish Open Access work, including some of the most well-known such as Cambridge University Press, Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, The MIT Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Springer, Elsevier, and so on. There are also publishers whose entire publishing output is made available on an

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