Scholarly Publishing

Getting published is quite the accomplishment. It takes hard work to write something worth publishing, and getting something published is hard work itself. Often authors are too excited and relieved to read the fine print of whatever agreement the publisher sends them. However, knowing what you are signing is important in exercising your rights as the copyright holder. You may be asked to relinquish all copyright. Authors who are faced with a publication contract that seeks transfer of the copyright should not hesitate to negotiate new terms or at least to reserve rights to use their own work in future teaching and writing and publish their work in a repository or find a different publisher. There are resources that can help in making decisions about their copyrights. 

Resources: 

• The Authors Alliance: Promotes authorship for the "public good by supporting authors who write to be read." 
• Author Rights & the SPARC Author Addendum: SPARC promotes authors' rights and open access. SPARC's author addendum allow authors retain open access rights in their author agreement. 
• Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine: Creative Commons offers this addendum engine to assist authors in creating addenda to be included with publication agreements. These documents amend the publication agreement to allow authors to retain rights to use and share their work. 
• SHERPA/RoMEO: This project offers important insight into the language of publication agreements.