Publishing open access books

Open access books are freely available online to be read, downloaded and reused, without having to log in or pay. Publishing open access enables a wider and more diverse readership and can increase visibility and impact of your research. You can make your book open access by publishing open access on the publisher website or by depositing a copy into a repository (self-archiving), normally a Creative Commons licence will be applied.

On this webpage we refer to open access publishing of scholarly monographs, book chapters and edited collections, but open access can also apply to textbooks and other student teaching materials (Open Educational Resources).

Open access book publishers

Publishers that offer open access book publishing options include specialist full open access book publishers, which only publish open access books. Hybrid publishers offer open access publishing following payment of a fee. Some publishers do not yet offer open access book publishing options as standard but may be able to provide this upon request.

Open Access books publishing resources

• OA Books Toolkit - information about all aspects of publishing open access books.
• University of Lancaster – Guide to publishing open access monographs, books and chapters.
• Open Book Environment Dashboard - summarises publisher open access book options and costs.
• JISC Open Access for books - overview of publisher book policies.
• University of Sheffield - list of open access monograph publishers.

Funder open access requirements for books

Many funders require open access to long form outputs, including UKRI (monographs, book chapters and edited collections, within 12 months), Wellcome Trust (scholarly monographs and book chapters, within six months) and Horizon Europe (immediate open access via a "trusted repository" to all peer-reviewed outputs). Visit the funder policies webpage to find out more.

Funding to publish open access

Not all publishers charge author fees to publish open access. Where the publisher charges a fee to publish an open access book, this may be referred to as a Book Processing Charge or BPC. These start at £5,000 and can go up to £10,000 or higher, plus VAT. Fees charged vary greatly between publishers, we recommend considering the relative costs when choosing where to publish. 

When publishing a book chapter, check the publisher’s self-archiving policy, many publishers allow allow you to deposit a copy of your chapter into a repository, free of charge. You may wish to include a Rights Retention statement in your chapter at submission, to ensure you can make the accepted manuscript version immediately open access in ORE under CC BY licence.

Contact the Open Research team before signing a publishing contract to discuss your options for making your monograph, chapter or edited collection open access.

Open access monograph initiatives

Book Processing Charges can present a barrier to publishing open access, as most authors do not have funding to pay. The University supports alternative funding models, whereby publishers publish open access books without charging author fees (diamond open access):

• Open Book Publishers publish open access books without author fees.
• Open Book Collective is a non-profit collective, bringing together open access publishers, service providers and knowledge institutions to secure a sustainable and equitable future for open access book.
• MIT Press Direct to Open is a Collective Action funding model, libraries subscribe to get access to the monograph backlist and the publisher uses that income to fund open access publication of new books, without author fees.
• JSTOR Path to Open libraries to pay to access 1,000 new books over three years, all of which will flip to open access three years after publication.

We previously supported the following programmes:

• OpenUP ECR monographs and University of London Press New Historical Perspectives both provided open access book publishing opportunities for Early Career Researchers, without the financial barrier of publishing fees.
• Liverpool University Press Opening the Future is a type of Collective Action funding, libraries subscribe to get access to the monograph backlist and the publisher uses that income to fund open access publication of new books, without author fees.

Third party copyrighted content in open access books

Ideally, open access versions should include all images, figures, illustrations and other supporting content. However, Third Party Copyrighted materials within an open access book may be under a more restrictive licence.  Find out more about about managing copyright in open access books in the UKRI and JISC guides. Or, visit the Copyright Toolkit.