Publishing open access (OA) means your book or chapter can be read, reviewed, shared, and cited without depending on purchasing a copy. OA increases the opportunities for your work to be read widely and to have an impact.
The advantages are:
For further information, see:
Many research funders now mandate OA for longform outputs resulting from their funding. This means that they must be free to download at the point of access with reuse permissions, usually a Creative Commons licence. Examples of funders with OA policies for longform outputs include:
For information on the different routes to compliance see the OA routes information below. For more details on complying with the different funder policies, see the links provided above or the Research funder open access policies guide.
Most monograph publishers detail their OA publishing options on their websites. Many of the university presses have options for OA monograph publishing, as do some commercial publishers.
Resources to assist with understanding OA publishing options:
Open Access for Books from Sherpa Services offers an overview of publishers' book policies to help authors and research organisations make decisions about OA publishing and meeting funders' guidelines. Use Open Access for Books search by publisher to find your chosen publisher's OA policy for books. It is still under development and more publishers will be added.
OA Books Toolkit aims to help book authors to better understand OA book publishing and to increase trust in OA books. You will be able to find relevant articles on OA book publishing following the research lifecycle, by browsing frequently asked questions or by searching with keywords.
OAPEN promotes and supports the transition to OA for academic books.
Books and chapters: Think Check Submit is a checklist tool that will help you to assess if a publisher may be suitable for your research.
DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books is a catalogue which provides access to OA books published by a variety of publishers, across a range of disciplines.
This is when monographs, edited collections or book chapters are immediately available to download from the publishers webpages/platform, usually with a re-use licence. Publishing gold OA will usually require the payment of a Book Processing Charge (BPC) or Chapter Processing Charge (CPC).
Publishers offering gold open access for monographs and/or book chapters. To find out more about types of output offered, prices and available licences, check each publisher:
If you are looking to publish gold OA with publishers not listed above you can do so in the following ways:
Green OA is where a copy of the final author accepted manuscript is deposited in a repository such as City Research Online. This is also known as self-archiving.
Many publishers allow the deposit of book chapters from monographs and edited collections in repositories. It is less common for them to allow the deposit of a full monograph. Publishers often request an embargo when depositing with a repository. The listed publishers allow monographs or book chapters to be deposited in repositories.
Green OA policies are often subject to change so please ensure you check the publisher webpages.
To find out more about what each publisher offers in terms of types of output and the licences available for accepted manuscripts, check each publisher and look for "green open access" or "self archiving policy."
If you are looking to publish a monograph, or book chapter, with a publisher not listed above you can check their permissions for depositing the accepted manuscript in the following ways:
For further information on the different routes to publishing your book or book chapter contact the Publications Team
If you are a UKRI funded author and need support with funding for a book or book chapter please contact the Research Support Manager for your school or contact Research Support Services