“Author pays” publishing model

Editor—Many readers' responses to the editorial by Delamothe et al are variations on the theme that authors cannot afford to pay to publish their work, especially young scientists and those from developing countries.¹,²

This is a real problem, but the editorial described three actual or potential developments that would make it unnecessary for authors to pay these fees.

Firstly, the editorial advocated that funding agencies treat the cost of publishing an article as part of the cost of research. Not all research is funded, and not all funding agencies have agreed to this policy. But if this model will work anywhere, it will work in the natural sciences, where most research is funded. Moreover, funding agencies are seriously considering the policy to pay the processing fees charged by open access journals. If this is too speculative, then consider two solutions that already exist.

Secondly, BioMedCentral offers institutional memberships that have the effect of waiving the processing fees for all researchers employed by an institutional member. The editorial listed some notable institutions that have decided to subsidise the fees in this way.

Thirdly, as the editorial noted, open access journals tend to waive processing charges in cases of financial hardship. This is the express policy of both BioMedCentral and the Public Library of Science.

While the editorial offered these three answers to the objection, it should have avoided the unfortunate and inaccurate phrase “author pays” to describe this business model. The open access business model is that someone at the author's end of the transaction should pay the costs of publication, rather than someone at the reader's end of the transaction (such as the reader or the reader's library). If the costs of dissemination are fully covered by the author's sponsor, then readers will need no sponsor of their own and can enjoy free access to this body of literature. But the charges needn't be paid by authors themselves and will usually be paid by the author's employer, research grant, or government.