The Press publishes a small list, reviews it independently, and makes every title open on the day of publication. This page sets out what publication with us involves.
Readership
Open-access books are downloaded around seven times more often than closed books in their first year, attract roughly 50 per cent more citations over four years, and are mentioned online about ten times as often. Springer Nature’s open titles averaged just under 30,000 chapter downloads in year one.
Springer Nature, The OA effect (2017), comparing 216 open-access books with 17,124 non-open-access books for downloads, and 184 with 14,357 for citations and mentions.
A closed monograph typically circulates in a few hundred library copies. An open edition is available to any reader, anywhere, on the day of publication.
Peer Review and the Advisory Board
Every book passes a minimum of two independent expert reviews at proposal stage, a formal author response, further rounds of review where the revisions justify them, and a second review of the finished manuscript before acceptance. The reviewed proposal then goes to our Advisory Board, whose members assess it across disciplines and recommend publication or decline it.
The process follows that used by established university presses, in which independent review and a scholarly board are separate stages.
Editorial Attention
We publish a small number of books a year. The same editor reads the whole manuscript, works with the author on its structure, and remains the author’s contact from proposal to publication.
You Keep Your Copyright
Authors retain copyright in their work. You grant us a licence to publish; you do not sign your book away. You choose the Creative Commons licence, subject to what your funder requires, and you remain free to reuse your own material, in teaching, in a later book or in a translation, without asking us for permission.
Funder Compliance
Publishing with us satisfies the open-access conditions of UKRI, Wellcome, Horizon Europe and the ERC, and other funders with equivalent requirements, without an embargo, a repository workaround or an author-accepted-manuscript deposit to remember. We confirm compliance for your specific award in writing before you sign, and we supply whatever your institution's research office needs for reporting.
Licensing and Compliance Detail
Discoverability
Every title is registered with Crossref and carries DOIs at both book and chapter level, with ORCID iDs, funder and grant identifiers and institutional affiliations attached. Books are deposited in the Directory of Open Access Books and OAPEN, supplied to library discovery services with full MARC records, indexed by Google Scholar and Google Books, and submitted to the relevant citation indexes. Chapter-level metadata makes each chapter independently discoverable.
Production
Every book is substantively copy-edited, professionally typeset, proofread, and indexed by a professional indexer. It is published in PDF, EPUB and HTML, built to accessibility standards, and a print edition, in hardcover or paperback, is available to order.
Production, Formats and Schedules
Preservation
Your book is archived with CLOCKSS and Portico, deposited with the Directory of Open Access Books and OAPEN, and lodged for legal deposit. DOIs are permanent. If this Press ceases to exist, the books survive it.
The Book Processing Charge
Accepted books carry a single book processing charge, fixed at USD 5,000 for most manuscripts and stated in the contract offer. It covers everything through to publication and permanent hosting: copy-editing, typesetting, indexing, all formats, metadata, deposit and preservation. There is no charge for submission or for peer review.
Funding is typically departmental, grant-driven, or institutional; several major funders operate dedicated funds for open-access books. Editorial decisions are taken with no knowledge of an author’s funding.
What We Ask of Authors
- We decline most of what is proposed to us, and we decline it after review rather than before. Prospective authors should read what we publish before proposing.
- We expect revised doctoral work to have been revised.
- We expect you to engage seriously with reviewers, including where they are wrong, and to meet the schedule you agree with us.
- The Press is new and small. It does not have the sales force or the backlist of an established university press.