Information Portal
The collective maintains an Information Portal intended to support academics and other not-for-profit entities interested in setting up their own publishing initiatives. Alongside resources on Funding Opportunities for open access book publishing, Open Source Publishing Tools, Software and Platforms, Opportunities for Collaborative Marketing and Events and guidelines to promote diversity, and good practices in Ethical Publishing, we also aim to, in the future, develop a formal toolkit of legal and financial resources, publishing standards and best practices for groups wanting to start their own publishing programmes.
Directory of Academic-Led Presses
The Directory of Academic-led Presses showcases the breadth and rich diversity in scholar-led presses currently operating in an international context and across numerous fields. This Directory aims to promote scholar and community-led publishing as a legitimate publishing model and wants to make academics aware of the not-for profit academic-led and focused alternatives that exist alongside the familiar commercial behemoths. It also aims to promote those works published by the presses within the Directory and offers them the opportunity to connect with like-minded initiatives.
For example, the Directory will show scholars how they can publish monographs with Mattering Press, meson press, punctum books and other open access publishers that are not-for-profit. Although many such alternative models for publishing OA academic books are now available, awareness of these models—and the presses that are associated with them—remains surprisingly low. As a result they have been underrepresented in the material on open access book publishing to date. Yet it can be argued that such initiatives constitute the long-term future for the academic book in the 21st century, not least because of the high cost of publishing OA books with a commercial press.