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& #39;t involve paying any author fees at all.
They do take more work, effort and/or time. Because that& #39;s usually how free things work. (2/?)

Lowest-friction option: rely on your publisher& #39;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">https://www.springer.com/gp/open-a... (4/?)

You can look up individual journals& #39; policies at http://sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php ">https://sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ind...
(I strongly suggest clicking all the way through from the results page to the publisher& #39;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-.
#retainmore">https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/manage-your-rights #retainmore">https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright...
(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& #39;t like & write in your own. Or hire a lawyer. OR work from the "addendum" templates BTAA and SPARC have made for you!
#addendum">https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/manage-your-rights #addendum">https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright... (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& #39;t.
http://hdl.handle.net/11299/198497 ">https://hdl.handle.net/11299/198... (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& #39;rexample, publishers who "have to own the copyright, sorry, can& #39;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& #39;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& #39;t. (15/?)

If you don& #39;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& #39;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& #39;s work for more on that - https://walt.lishost.org/2019/05/gold-open-access-2013-2018-now-available/)">https://walt.lishost.org/2019/05/g... (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">https://www.lib.umn.edu/publishin... (19/?)

Finally, FFS, do not pay article fees that are over US $2,500. (Maaaaaaaaybe $3K.) Just don& #39;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& #39;t pay high fees for open access journals in a publisher& #39;s stable to which they suggest you submit after you don& #39;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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