‘A Sub-What?’ FAQs on the Mysterious Book Subvention

"I don’t know of any scholarly press that requires a payment as a condition of publishing your book. We are not pay-to-publish businesses. That said, university presses, as nonprofits, may ask you to try to secure financial support for your book. And there may be exceptional circumstances in which a nonprofit or for-profit press might require that. Most academics don’t fully understand how subventions work, who pays them, and what they’re for. Myths abound and I get asked a lot of nervous questions. Hence this FAQ with everything academic writers need to know about this quirk of publishing....

There are unique cases in which a press — nonprofit or for-profit — may require a subvention. The two primary instances are: (1) if you want to include color images (which can drive up the printing cost); or (2) you want — or your institution requires — an open-access edition of your book to be published...."