Taxacom: Savage scientific publishers, another slant

Sun May 28 11:23:49 CDT 2023

Hi Richard,

Why not publish it yourself? It will not take very long to put all your files into a publishing programme and once you get the hang of it is very quick. It takes no more than 3 days to import it, check it and format it. I just did this in 3 days with a 900 page volume that includes 150 pages of b+w plates and 40pp of colour plates. Publish it as an e-book with the option of on-demand printing.  You have complete control of what goes in and how. All you miss out on is the distribution know-how. If you do not want to make any money and just want to get your book out there then you can publish the book with a hard cover at cost which is around 23 USD for 500 pages of text or about 110 USD for 500 pages with as many colour pages as you want (i.e. a coffee table book). Lete's face it, how many of us make serious money from publishing taxonomic books. We use this model for Taxonomic Monographs on Neotropical Hymenoptera and it costs us nothing, the PDFs are completely free or cost a very small amount for a good-quality hard cover bound copy. In my view all large taxonomic works should be published in this way because then anyone can have access to the literature without it costing an arm and a leg.

John

Dr John S. Noyes
Scientific Associate
Insects Division
Natural History Museum
South Kensington
London SW7 5BD
UK

Everything you wanted to know about Chalcidoidea (Universal Chalcidoidea Database):
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Taxonomic Monographs on Neotropical Hymenoptera
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________________________________
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> on behalf of Richard Zander via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
Sent: 28 May 2023 14:58
To: Taxacom (taxacom at lists.ku.edu) <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
Subject: Taxacom: Savage scientific publishers, another slant

I've been sent email with many offers and requests from major publishers to contribute a scientific book that I would write (or be lead editor). No charge to me, promises of always being available in ebook form if hardcopy is unavailable. Sounds great as an alternative to paying an unconcionably high fee for open access.

Then...I examined the sales pages of some of these publishers, and that is where they lget you. US$150 is an average price for a newly published book with critical scinetific stuff worth reading and citing.

Ebook? Even more expensive. There is often an option to "rent" an ebook, for tons of money.

Those of us who contemplate publishing a book should check the price at which the book may be sold. Kindly do not choose a publisher that will restrict access to the book by a pay wall at the sales level. A colleague without a fat grant may like to read your book.

-------
Richard H. Zander
Missouri Botanical Garden - 4344 Shaw Blvd. - St. Louis - Missouri - 63110 - USA
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