Thread by @CopyrightLibn, I Want To Make My Article Open Access, But The Fees Are [...]

I Want To Make My Article Open Access, But The Fees Are So High?!!!?!?!!! (a thread)
(1/?)

There are several ways to make an article openly available that don't involve paying any author fees at all.
They do take more work, effort and/or time. Because that's usually how free things work. (2/?)

Lowest-friction option: rely on your publisher's self-archiving policy!
Many publishers have an established policy on when and how authors can share their articles online. Some are more straightforward than others. (3/?)

For example, pretty much all Springer journals allow their authors to share the final peer-reviewed manuscript on a personal website* as soon as the paper is accepted, and in an institutional or funder repository 12 months after publication https://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/authors-rights/self-archiving-policy/2124 (4/?)

You can look up individual journals' policies at http://sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php
(I strongly suggest clicking all the way through from the results page to the publisher's own website; sometimes the S/R summary misses policy subtleties.) (5/?)

You can also pick a publisher ahead of time with a good archiving policy, using Sherpa/Romeo. (6/?)

But! Publisher policies often -only- cover online posting - what if you want to reuse a figure later? Also, publishers can unilaterally change their policies.
Sooooooo, if you -really- want to control your own work, KEEP YOUR RIGHTS!!!!11!1!! (7/?)

You keep your rights by -negotiating before you sign OR CLICK ON any author agreement-.
https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/manage-your-rights#retainmore
(In fact, clicking on a boilerplate agreement can mess with a negotiated agreement. Click-thrus suck and should not be used for publication agreements.) (8/?)

But how to negotiate? Well, you can just scratch out parts you don't like & write in your own. Or hire a lawyer. OR work from the "addendum" templates BTAA and SPARC have made for you!
https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/manage-your-rights#addendum (9/?)

When you have retained broad ownership of rights, you can usually post -any- version of the article you want. Publisher policies often distinguish between submitted, peer-reviewed manuscript, and formatted-for-print, but copyright doesn't.
http://hdl.handle.net/11299/198497 (10/?)

Also, retaining rights allows you to post anywhere you want, including on commercial social media sites like Academia dot edu and Rese*rchG*te. Few publisher policies enable this; some are deliberately unclear about where you can post. (11/?)

Another option: your institution, funder, or employer may have rules or policies about articles being available. A lot of publishers work responsively with these, or people at your institution/funder may have insights on how to invoke as an individual author. (12/?)

(F'rexample, publishers who "have to own the copyright, sorry, can't negotiate with authors" somehow magically manage publish the works of US federal government employees, which simply do not have any copyrights and thus belong to everyone.) (13/?)

If your heart is set on an all-open-access journal for which -all- articles have fees, retaining rights won't help avoid the fee. BUT, there are still some options. (14/?)

If you have any research funding, WRITE OPEN ACCESS FEES INTO YOUR GRANT PROPOSALS. This should be basic by now, but somehow isn't. (15/?)

If you don't have any research funding*, a lot of the more ethical all-open publishers have waiver programs.
*Some ppl are reading this and thinking, who doesn't have research funding?? A LOT OF PEOPLE AT YOUR INSTITUTION, I GUARANTEE IT. (Also, LOTS of people elsewhere.)(16/?)

Not having research funding has to do with seniority & reputation & power & disciplinary variation & geography & a ton of other things, almost none of which have to do with the quality of research. (17/?)

Also, if you are aiming at an all-open-access/therefore-all-articles-have-fees journal, please be aware that lots of journals -do- charge less than US $2,000. (See @waltcrawford's work for more on that - https://walt.lishost.org/2019/05/gold-open-access-2013-2018-now-available/) (18/?)

In fact, there are ways to have an all-open-access journal for which no author pays article fees! For example, @umnlib has a publishing team that works with editorial teams on 100% free-to-authors OA journals (wanna flip yours?) https://www.lib.umn.edu/publishing/works/journals (19/?)

Finally, FFS, do not pay article fees that are over US $2,500. (Maaaaaaaaybe $3K.) Just don't. Even if you have the most amazing, infinite pool of research funds available. These high fees are the most naked profiteering in academic publishing right now. (20/21)

And REALLY don't pay high fees for open access journals in a publisher's stable to which they suggest you submit after you don't make it in to the closed flagship. IMO, having "rolldown" journals with author fees (closed or open) is massively unethical. But I digress... (21/21)

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