[red_admiral]

Publisher-hosted open access is a scam.

Here in the UK we already have an open-access requirement for RCUK and EPSRC grants, but it can be met by uploading a preprint to an institution- or subject-specific repository (such as arXiv) and including a link to it in your report back to the grant sponsor.

Last time I published in a journal, I got a "special offer" of $1200 instead of $2000 to make it open access. I politely rejected the offer - it's already online for $0, just hosted by the university itself.

[baby]

This doesn't make any sense, why would they make you pay less to make it open access? You mean it was 1200$ more?

[Retric]

They where only going to charge 1200$ to make it open access instead of charging 2,000$.

[p4bl0]

To be sure everyone understand you correctly:

– "normal" publishing (behind a paywall) is free for authors,

– the open access option was set arbitrarily to $2000 by the publisher, and they decided to offer a discount at $1200 instead.

[red_admiral]

That's about right.

(For conferences with proceeedings, even normal publishing is not free - part of the conference fee is to pay the publisher.)

[baby]

I still don't understand. Is pablo's correct? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12439402

[Retric]

Yes. They where only going to charge 1200$ to make it open access instead of their normal charge of 2,000$ to make it open access.

[foota]

This makes me feel stupid, but people get paid when they publish in journals?

[dublinben]

No. The "special offer" was for the publication fee. Major publishers have decided that they can charge extra for open access papers.

[paulddraper]

They charge extra, because making it open-access prevents them from charging readers as they would normally do.

[Normal_gaussian]

I believe he is referring to the normal price for publishing it as open access being 2k, but their current deal reduces it to 1.2k

However you shouldn't feel stupid. The wording is, as English often is, confusing to those without context.

[kaeluka]

That's the price journals ask to make a paper open access.

Edit: oh my, three+ comments at the same time.