A new year’s publishing resolution | Sophie C. Lewis

"My paper cost $US 1500 to publish, which encompasses the cost of production. This is the process that introduced a multitude of errors into my work and required ~20 emails to rectify. This was paid to Elsevier as part of their $25 billion revenue.

Around the same time I submitted this paper, I had a parallel paper in review in a society-based journal. This is journal is published by a not-for-profit scientific organisation that aims to advance, promote and disseminate research in the weather and climate sciences. This paper did not incur a page charge. Such societies provide an alternative to mega-publishers.

Like many individual researchers and organisations before me, I’ve had enough of exorbitant page charges for poor service. I’ve had enough of the expectation that I will volunteer my time as a reviewer for journals run for profit. And I’ve had enough of the market dominance of a small number of publishers.

As 2016 ticked over to 2017, I made a resolution to be more attentive to my publishing decisions. While I grumbled at the careless copy-editing applied to my paper by production staff, I was also responsible for this outcome by choosing a journal published by a corporation intent on squeezing profit from all points of scholarly work. While I don’t suggest that all for-profit publishing is evil or that all their production staff are mouth breathers, I can’t really rile at Elsevier while simultaneously handing them my credit card details.

This year, I’m planning to be more considered when I accept and decline reviewer requests and where I direct my research output. And of course, I’m planning to avoid supporting Elsevier and its obscene stranglehold on science, in favour of society-based journals."