Pre-impact-factor discount: Nature Conservation

Note: Open access fees will be waived for all submissions published in the first four issues of Nature Conservation and will be reduced with 25 % until the journal will be covered by the ISI Web of Science.  All papers published in the first issues will be later ISI covered and will have an Impact factor when the journal receives it.

Introductory discount: Brill‘s language for 4 new open journals is introductory discount. (Brill Open Biology, Brill Open Humanities, Brill Open Law and Brill Open Social Sciences). This terminology is a good practice as it will help to avoid future shocks when journals become successful and publishers increase prices. For medium to long-term budgeting purposes it is important to note that for journals like this today’s price may be very different from tomorrow’s price.

Brill’s Fascism: The APCs (Article Publication Charges) for this journal are reduced to EUR 645 / USD 855 (excluding 21% VAT) for CC-BY-NC licenses in 2015.  The 2014 price was 1,700 USD, so this is about half-price. I wonder if this is really temporary or if it reflects that Brill’s original pricing was too high for authors in this area?

Science Domain International is offering 80 – 95% discounts on their base APC of $500 USD for all of their journals from April to the end of May 2015. Low or free-for-now pricing is a common strategy for new publishers aiming to build their repertoire and reputation. These are great deals while they are available, but for long-term budgeting purposes it may be best not to assume that this will continue.

This post is part of the open access article processing charges project.

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