Open access books - publishing options

Some publishers will allow their authors to make their chapters or books (whole or in part) available via a repository where they can be accessed openly at no cost, such as UoN's Research Information System (RIS). This is often referred to as green open access or self-archiving.

Self-archiving policies for books and chapters differ from those for journal articles and conference proceedings and they can often be more challenging to find.

Authors may need to check with their publisher for details concerning which manuscript can be shared, the publisher's preferred licence, and any embargo periods that may apply.

You may find the Open Book Environment (OBE) Dashboard helpful, which details publisher self-archiving policies for books and chapters and is routinely updated by UK and US librarians (to view the full contents of the dashboard, click on the filter symbol in the Publisher column and select the desired view). 

If you are unable to make part or all of your manuscript open access, you can usually still create a bibliographic record of your publication in RIS (i.e. author, title, publisher, etc., but no full-text). You may need to do this if you intend to submit your book or chapter as part of the REF 2029; whilst long-form outputs are currently not in scope of the REF 2029 Open Access Policy, RIS continues to be the tool the University will use to collate the next submission.  

For guidance on creating a deposit, please follow the RIS Outputs and Research Repository User Guide.

Libraries pay an annual membership fee to publishers to support the costs of making books open access e.g. Open Book Publishers.  

Publishers charge one-off payments to make a book or book chapter open access. These can be quite large e.g., £5-15,000 per whole book. Many commercial publishers offer this model now e.g. Bloomsbury.  

Libraries and other institutions support or pledge funds to make collections or individual books open access, once enough pledges are received, the collection/book is made open access e.g. Knowledge Unlatched.  

Publishers offer basic services for the work to be made available freely, but charge for additional features and functionality e.g., OpenEdition.   

Institutional presses that offer subsidised OA publication through their university press e.g. UCL Press. Member institution authors can benefit from fee waivers/discounts. 

Authors use independent services and technologies to publish their book openly.