A: Richard
T. Hull, Ph.D., TAA Executive Director::
"Page charges
are levied by some journals (usually scientific ones) to cover the
costs of art work, type setting and editing for an article. Such journals
usually have a relatively quick turn around time, and several publish
weekly issues. This is to give authors the best chance of claiming
their advances first, and to give readers the latest possible advances
in their field. They are usually on slick paper (which is heavy and
cost more to mail). Page charges represent the journal's attempt to
spread their cost among contributors on an equitable basis. So you
might expect the page costs for a 10 page article to be twice those
for a five page article.
Increaingly science
journals are being pressured to publish their contents on line in
an open access manner that makes accessing their contents free to
anyone. So they are losing income from subscriptions. This is another
reason that page costs are going up.
Specially created
illustrations are also expensive, and some journals have their own
art departments. Again, the costs of such illustrations are passed
along to the contributor.
Fortunately,
as a member of TAA, you may apply for up to $750 in grant money to
assist you in covering page costs, if you have been a member for a
year and renewed at least once. While currently we limit you to one
such grant in a given year, if the demand for this service picks up
we will consider devoting more resources to assisting our academic
authors in this manner. You can find the application criteria and
procedure in the TAA website here (downloadable
PDF) or on page 5 of August 2007 issue of The Academic Author.
These grants
are offered as a fall back when your institution doesn't provide funds
for publication costs and you don't have a research grant to pay such
costs.
We are eager
to see if members find this help useful, so look into it!"
A: Kevin
Patton, Professor of Life Science, St. Charles Community College,
St. Peters, MO:
"Page charges
are levied by a journal to defray their costs of pre-print production
and possibly also printing and distribution charges.
Usually, you
can find more details in the journal itself or on their website. If
you look at these details, you may find that they waive or reduce these
fees in certain circumstances. It's worth a look to see. If not stated,
I would appeal to the editor for a waiver or reduction after you paper
has been accepted for publication.
Many academic
authors in my field (life science) build these fees into a grant
that funds the research upon which the paper is based. Sometimes, and
author will request the grantor provide additional funds for such publication.
If you don't
want to pay the fees yourself, I would check your department
or division to see if they have a budget for this. If not, I'd
see if someone at your institution would be willing to pay it. One option
there would be to contact your institution's foundation office.
The bottom line
is that it is usually the author's responsibility to find funding
for the page charges."
