So I compile and edit a book of articles on evolutionary biology and genomics. Research Signposts publishes it as a real hard-bound book, and I get 30% of the author publication charges. Sounds great...
Wait, 'author publication charges'? Do the authors PAY to be published in this book? So I clicked on the 'publication plans' link.
They have four different publication plan options.
- In the first plan, the author(s) of each article in my book must buy 100 reprints of their article, for a minimum of $435, depending on the length of the article. This also (I think) gets them three copies of the book.
- In the second plan, I pay a minimum of $1950 to have the book published, more for colour figures and pages >150. I get five copies and each article's author(s) get one.
- In the third plan I purchase 25 copies of my book. It's not clear how much these will cost, but the charges sheet mentions $899 for three copies plus a pdf.
- The fourth plan doesn't get me a hardbound book at all. Instead I pay $995 (or more) for Research Signposts to make my book available online.
Thanks but no thanks.
It used to be so simple, you did some experiments, wrote up some interesting results and then back to the bench.
ReplyDeleteNow the poor researcher has to spend their time getting the money, only doing publishable work, calculating costs of publishing and now avoid getting scammed. Glad I'm retired.
This is a perfect excuse to re-read the wonderful work from Umberto Eco, "Foucault's Pendulum", where a voracious italian SFA (Self-Financed Author) publishing house makes out its living out of narcissist and innocent authors, creating a collection of beautifully bound volumes that no one will read and will have to be entirely paid by the poor SFA.
ReplyDeleteGenius move!
Seriously, what the hell is this ?
ReplyDelete