Some research articles and e-books on the Now Publishers website are published fully Open Access, as Gold Open Access. Gold OA makes the final version of an article or manuscript freely and permanently accessible for everyone, immediately after publication. Copyright for the article or manuscript is retained by the authors and most of the permission barriers are removed. Gold OA articles can be published either in fully Open Access journals (where all the content is published OA) or hybrid journals (a subscription-based journal that offers an OA option that authors can choose if they wish). In contrast, Green OA is where an author publishes their article in any journal and then self-archives a copy in a freely accessible institutional or specialist online archive known as a repository, or on a website. All our Foundations and Trends journal articles and books are published as Green OA.
Articles and books are published under the terms of a non-commercial Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Gold OA content is supported by an Article Processing Charge (APC) or a Book Processing Charge (BPC), paid by the Author, Editor or their funder.
Open Access books are freely available online under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC). Authors and editors are able to share the content and upload this to repositories of choice, including their personal websites. Authors and editors retain the copyrights to all their content published as Open Access. Print copies of books for which the e-book is published as Open Access are available for purchase, and authors and editors will continue to receive royalties over print book sales. Now Publishers believe that we should publish books based on the quality of the work rather than the authors’ ability to pay. The editorial process – including the decision whether or not to publish the work – is independent of the author’s and editor’s decision to publish Gold OA.
Once a new book proposal is received, for a standalone book we send this for review to an expert in the field, a person selected by the Publisher, or to the Series Editor in case the submission is made to an Open Access book series. If the scope of a book proposal lies outside the area of expertise of the Series Editor, they may ask an Editorial Board member to assess the proposal. Reviewers are invited to comment about the academic relevance of the proposed title, the perceived quality and whether they think there are topics missing in the proposed outline.
Feedback and recommendations from the Series Editor and/or the reviewer are shared with authors for their information. If the author accepts the suggested changes from the reviewer, then the Series Editor together with the Publisher make the decision to accept the book for publication, after which the author is offered a Publishing Agreement. If the Series Editor or the reviewer deem the proposal to be out of scope or not of the expected quality, or the author is unwilling to follow the reviewers’ recommendations, then the proposal is rejected outright.
In a contract that we may offer, the estimated manuscript completion date is determined, as well as the Book Publication Charge. The minimum BPC for Now Publishers books is USD 6,000 (excluding any applicable VAT or local sales tax), this is for an average sized monograph of approximately 250 pages. The BPC for larger monographs and edited volumes may be higher. Authors and editors are invited to contact their publisher at Now Publishers in order to discuss and evaluate the BPC on a case-by-case basis. Now Publishers aim to publish approximately ten Open Access books annually.
Once the final manuscript is received from the author, it is sent back to the original reviewer, or the Series Editor for their comments and approval. The Series Editor and/or the reviewer acknowledge that revisions recommended in the original review have been included into the final manuscript, where after we send the manuscript files to our production team for editing and type-setting. If the recommended revisions have not been included in the final manuscript, it is sent back to the author for them to action this. Typically, a book manuscript will go through two rounds of revisions prior to the Open Access version being published online. Simultaneous to the production process, authors are sent the invoice for the agreed Book Publication Charge.
All Open Access books are submitted to the Web of Science Book Citation Index, to SCOPUS, and to the Directory of Open Access books for indexing, and the DOI of the published book is deposited with CrossRef. External digital archiving happens with Portico to ensure that the content remains available. Published books are promoted globally to applicable and relevant communities. Open Access books are identified on our website by the NowOpen logo, and the text “Open Access” on the download button.
Gold OA publishing for journals is an alternative to subscriptions and other access payments. Now Publishers publishes fully Open Access journals, and also has Open Access articles in its subscription journals, which are referred to as hybrid journals. These hybrid journals offer authors the choice of paying an Article Processing Charge (APC) to publish their articles as Gold OA, including articles that are already published. Once a journal article has been published as Open Access, we are unable to convert the article from an OA to a non-OA article. We use the CC BY-NC license for Gold OA journal articles, which is a creative commons license in which credit needs to be given to the creator, and which does not allow for commercial re-use.
The standard APC for hybrid journals is USD 2,500 (excluding any applicable VAT or local sales tax). The APC is calculated to contribute to the costs associated with the publication process. This includes peer review of the submitted manuscript, typesetting, online hosting, and dissemination of the published article. In this way the APC covers Editorial work, the technical infrastructure, production of manuscripts, marketing of the content and customer service.
Now Publishers believe that we should publish articles based on the quality of the work rather than the authors’ ability to pay. The editorial process – including the decision whether or not to publish the work – is independent from the author’s decision to publish Gold OA. All journal articles published as Open Access are subject to peer-review by a reviewer prior to being accepted. The reviewers are appointed by the Editorial Board of the applicable journal to which the article was submitted.
Open Access articles are identified on our website by the NowOpen logo, and the text “Open Access” on the download button.