If Everything Goes Open Access, How Will Authors Make Money

By Publishing Perspectives

Open Access (OA) has wide support in many STM and academic publishing circles. But many fear that if everything becomes open, how will the people who research, write and publish will significantly have their income curtailed.

Jan Reichelt, co-founder and president of Mendeley, the Elsevier-owned platform for managing and sharing research papers and the subject of today’s feature story, replies: “I think scientists in general don’t necessarily publish for financial reward, but more to have an impact within the academic community, build their reputation, and to advance society in general. In short, it’s their passion. They are being paid and funded by universities, government, or public or private funding bodies.

“This is different from the authors of books, who indeed make a living with their writing. Nevertheless, if more content is more openly available, then this can make services and solutions that work with and through that content massively more valuable – see for example all the work Mendeley is doing on personalized reading recommendations based on academic articles. The value proposition then includes not only the value of the content Æ for example, article processing charges for OA articles – but also the value of the service, such as a premium subscription to Mendeley.”

Source: publishingperspectives.com