A new Open Access pilot scheme from Cambridge University Press will turn conventional publishing models on their head by making academic monographs that sell the most copies available online for free.
The initiative, called Flip it Open, will see selected books published and sold as normal, primarily through library collections for universities. But once a title meets a set amount of revenue, the Press has committed to make it freely available online.
This means that those titles most in demand will be made Open Access first, giving more readers free access to popular monographs and authors greater reach and impact for their research without the need to pay OA publishing fees.
At the same time as making a title OA, the Press will also publish it in an affordable paperback edition for those who want a physical copy. Both the digital and the paperback editions will contain a page thanking those institutions that bought the book and so helped fund the flip to OA.
More than 25 academic monographs will be included in the pilot. Those that are flipped to Open Access will be available through Cambridge Core, the online home for the Press’s academic content.
The Flip it Open model also reinforces the Press’s commitment to Open Access and to providing a route to OA for all of its book and journal authors, including those without access to funding. It removes the need for authors or their funders to pay an upfront fee, or processing charge, to cover the cost of publishing a book OA. This model is currently the most widely used for OA books publishing, but heavily favours certain subjects and author affiliations. The Press wants to offer something fairer and more inclusive.
The first book in the pilot will publish in July.
Click here to read the original press release.
