The UC Press Model
We believe in sharing costs between all parties who benefit from publication—author or institution, publisher, and libraries. In our model no one entity carries the whole burden, making it sustainable for the long haul.
The selection and review processes remain the same as in our traditional program; the same exacting criteria and peer review standards apply.
Creative Commons licensing options allow authors to control how their work is used.
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The Best of Both Worlds
Luminos combines the reach and flexibility of open digital with the option of traditional print. For reviewers and award committees who ask for ink on paper, we’ll make print copies available.
And anyone else who wants to hold your book in their hands can easily purchase a print copy.
A Sustainable Model
Monographs are costly to publish. When you publish in the Open Access Luminos program, the burden is shared across the academic community. That means the baseline $15,000 publishing cost is broken down into manageable amounts for the researcher, the university, the library, and us.
Any surplus from library memberships and print sales goes into an author waiver fund, so we can nurture future work.
The
author will be asked to secure $7,500 either from their home
institution and/or another independent funding source. For faculty in
the University of California system the reduced amount is $5,000. This
subsidy requirement is for titles of no more than 90,000 words and 25
images. Additional subsidy costs will be required for titles exceeding
this length, and/or those with heavy illustration programs, multimedia
components or other complexity.
There are a number of potential funding sources beyond for authors’s institutional contribution (such as departmental/Dean’s funds, the library’s OA fund, campus grants etc.). Please discuss those options with your UC Press editor.
Authors or institutions who don’t have sufficient funds available to them may be eligible for our Author Waiver Fund.
Many university presses already require subvention for scholarly monographs. But the availability of subvention does not affect UC Press’ decision to publish any book. While the Luminos program will require a Title Publication Fee, books that meet UC Press’ rigorous standards of peer review but do not have access to funding to support this may be able to be published traditionally.