Many funders such as UKRI, Wellcome, NIHR, Horizon Europe now require Open Access publication for books and book chapters. For full details see our Open Access and UKRI funded projects page and our Open Access and funder requirements page .

 Publishing your book Open Access has a range of benefits such as 

• Flexibility to link to audiovisual resources and other multimedia such as interactive maps, digitised archives etc. or to toggle between versions in different languages 
• Reaching a wider audience across a more diverse range of countries, increasing donwloads and citations. See this report from research by Springer in 2020
• OA books as a group have ten times more downloads than non-OA books and more than double the number of citations. See https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.558
• Ability to measure use and downloads of your work 
• Freedom to post and share your work online wherever you want 
• Making it easier for your work to be included in Reading Lists and other teaching resources

Academics talking about their experiences of publishing OA

Caroline Warman, University of Oxford  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYG6Um90bVI&t=883s   

Claire Brock, University of Leicester (forward to 41.18 in recording) UKRI open access policy for longform publications event | Part 2: Presentations from research sector - YouTube   

Joanna Page, University of Cambridge (forward to 46.21 in recording) UKRI open access policy for longform publications event | Part 2: Presentations from research sector - YouTube   

14 case studies from researchers at the University of Sheffield who reflect on publishing with Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, Punctum, Edward Elgar and Open Book publishers.

The Open Access Books Toolkit’s collection of case studies where authors from different disciplinary and geographical backgrounds explain their experiences with a range of publishers.

Understand the process and choose the right publisher 

The OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit explains the process of publishing an Open Access book. 

Use these tools to choose a quality, trusted publisher for your book or chapter. 

Licences 

OA books and chapters must be published under a Creative Commons licence which specify the ways in which your work can be used and shared. Check if your funder requires the use of a specific licence. CC BY is recommended by most funders.  

Third party copyright  

Including third-party content in online OA publications is largely the same as for print non-open access publications. However, licences from copyright holder and attribution may differ. Third-party items in OA publications can be made available under their own separate licences.  Refer to UKRI’s Managing third-party copyright for research publications.

While Read and Publish agreements exist for journal article publishing, there are no equivalent agreements for OA book and chapter publishing. 

Instead, OA for books can be achieved by

making the published version freely available on the publisher website through payment of a fee (called Gold OA)  

 OR 

making the published version freely available on the publisher website for free by selecting a publisher where there are no costs (called Diamond OA). The costs are covered through a variety of business models

 OR 

depositing the accepted version of your book or chapter in KAR (at no cost, called Green OA)  

 OR  

retrospective OA where a non-OA book is selected for conversion to OA at a later stage under a separate OA initiative or library partnership (at no cost to the author). For example, CUP Flip to Open 

 This route means that your book will be freely and publicly available online immediately upon publication 

• the author, institution or funder pays a book processing charge (BPC) to make the work Open Access.   

• this route applies to e-books only.  

• you choose the terms under which your work is shared and re-used by applying a  Creative Commons licence.  

There are currently no institutional funds for payment of BPCs unless your work arises from a UKRI, Wellcome, NIHR or Horizon Europe project.   

 This route means that your book or chapter will be freely and publicly available online immediately upon publication  

• at no cost to the author 

• you choose the terms under which your work is shared and re-used by applying a  Creative Commons licence.  

Publishers use alternative revenue sources to enable them to operate without charging BPCs. Examples of business models and publishers are:

• Library memberships - libraries pay memberships to publishers that cover the costs for all books to be published OA. For example, Open Book Publishers, OpenUP
• Institutionally subsidised university presses. For example, LSE Press, Coventry UP
• Freemium - a version of the ebook is made OA at no charge to the author; the free access is subsidised by other revenue sources, such as sales of other formats. For example, Open Humanities Press 

This route means you deposit a version of your work in the Kent Academic Repository (KAR). 

• This costs nothing
• It's most suitable for chapters
• It works for books that are published in print or online
• You need to get the permission of the publisher to put your work in KAR. Many publishers allow this. Email us if you need advice: researchsupport@kent.ac.uk. 
• Use JISC’s Open Policy Finder to check publishers’ policies  
• You are usually only allowed to use the Author Accepted Manuscript of a chapter. 
• You usually need to use an embargo, which means your work won't be Open Access until a set period has passed

Open:

Fully OA publishers focus purely on digital Open Access publishing. Some will also publish a small number of print editions or print them upon request.  There will usually be a Book Processing Charge.

Hybrid:

Hybrid publishers offer a choice of traditional non OA publication, or OA publication, usually for a fee. Some publishers will permit Green OA with deposit of a manuscript in KAR, with an embargo. 

 A range of costs exists depending upon the publisher and the OA business model that they use.  

These costs tend to be charged by the main commercial publishers. They are the most expensive 

• Costs vary according to the length of the book but lie somewhere between £12,000 and £16,000.  

• Generally, costs will exceed the £10,000 and £1,000 limit that UKRI will fund for books and chapters. But some publishers are making efforts to keep costs for UKRI books and chapters under the UKRI limits.  

• VAT applies.  

• The rationale for the calculation of the fee and the way the fee will be used is not always transparent or comprehensible.

These costs tend to be charged by the full OA publishers and the newer University Presses  

• Costs are lower than the commercial publishers 

• Costs will be under the £10,000 UKRI funding limit. 
  
  
• VAT applies 

• The rationale for the calculation of the fee and details about the way the fee will be used is likely to be more transparent and comprehensible 

There are no costs from OA Diamond publishers.

However, where authors have UKRI or project funds available, they are encouraged to pay a fee.

Need research support or advice? Email researchsupport@kent.ac.uk

Find out all the ways you can get in touch.