Why should I publish my work (article or book) at Download Academic?

      This answer is also found on our ten-reasons page.

There are many reasons to publish at Download Academic.

1. Precedence.  By publishing your work at Download Academic, you are putting on record, for the world to see, that you have done whatever work you are reporting.  In an age where research and publishing are often a winner-takes-all race to the finish line, this gives you an almost unfair advantage — as soon as your work is ready, you can "put it up" at Download Academic.  Once we've posted it (within a week), anyone you may have been in the race with — whether you or they knew it or not — can only hope, at best, to come in second.
     
2. Inclusion.  Perfectly good and important work often cannot find a venue among traditional publishers, for a variety of reasons.  But you can publish it here.
    
3. Visibility.  In academia — or industry, for that matter — it's often important to be seen.  Career and collaboration opportunities can come from unexpected places — but only if the people in those places know you exist and what you've done.  Ever hear the phrase, "languish in obscurity"?  Obscurity can lead to languishing.  Publishing at Download Academic can put you on page 1 — and in many cases maygive you broader coverage than journal publication.
    
4. Body of work.  In academia, it sometimes seems a person is worth their weight in publications.  Naturally, whenever possible, you want your work published in the top journals of your field.  But in the many cases where this isn't possible — for whatever reason — why settle for nothing?  If you've done quality work that you can't seem to get published elsewhere, add to your perceived worth by publishing it at Download Academic.
     
5. Colleagues.  It's much more rewarding to pursue your work in the company of those who share your interest in it, whether their own pursuit is along similar lines or complementary in some way.  At Download Academic, your work can be found by anyone who puts the right terms in a search engine.  Chances are, some of them may correspond with you, not only facilitating your research but enriching your professional life.
     
6. Contribution.  Who in the world could benefit from your work?  For that matter, how could anyone possibly benefit?  You can't know the answers to those questions.  In some cases you might guess, but often scholars and researchers have been astonished by the uses to which their work has been put.  Making your work available at Download Academic — which means, also, making it accessible to search engines such as Google — greatly enhances the ability of your work to be found by those who could really benefit from it.  Chances are, you'll make a greater contribution to society.
     
7. Convenience.  You probably have a list of people who should be informed about your work.  What could be more convenient than sending them a link directly to the page for your work at Download Academic?
    
8. Economy.  Our costs are low.  If your work is very esoteric, this is an affordable way to get the word out to those few who might be interested.  And if your work meets a substantial demand, our 60% royalties make it easy to actually make money.
    
9. Print.  Once we have accepted your work in downloadable format, you can take advantage of our print-on-demand services as well.
    
10. Speed.  Need to get the word out fast?  We'll post your work within a week.
        

How will people find my work at Download Academic?

People can find your work in four ways.

1. You should tell people where it is!  Send an announcement to colleagues, students, etc.   And mention it on your website, with a link to your work on our site.  (Each of your works will have its own unique, permanent URL (web address) that you can give people as well as link to.
    
2. Your work will be directly accessible to search engines (such as Google), you can expect that after they index it, anyone searching the Internet for words or phrases which match the title, keywords or description of your work on our site would be able to find it that way.
    
3. As increasing numbers of academic authors display their work on our site — and as search engine exposure of the works on our site increases — the number of visitors to our site should increase exponentially.  And anyone visiting the site can find your work either through the subject menu or through a site search.
    
4. Anyone who finds your work — or any work of value to them — on our site will likely tell others about the site, again increasing the exposure of your work as well as all our other works.

So it makes sense to go ahead and register, display your work(s) on our site — and then spread the word that you've done so!

How do I know you are honest and will really tell me about every time a copy of my work is sold?

Easily.  And there’s no need to trust us. At any time, you can have someone you know purchase your work and tell you exactly when they do it.  The sale will immediately show up in your sales records.  (This assumes a credit card payment.  PayPal sales are delayed until PayPal approves the transaction.)  You could also check in the next day, or the next week, or the next month — all sales are listed permanently by date and time, so you could confirm that this particular sale was still "on the books".

There is no way we could know when an author is using a third party to make such test purchases.  If we were hiding some of your sales from you, one of our authors would quickly discover it in this manner, and we’d be history.  That’s not the kind of history we plan to make!

How do you ensure the academic integrity of material on your site?

We encourage our site visitors to report any instances of misrepresentation or other violations of our standards.  Authors know that upon our confirmation of such reports, they are at risk of the removal of all their work plus immediate loss of all rights and privileges at Download Academic.

If I publish my work at Download Academic, will I still be able to publish it elsewhere too?

Absolutely.  Our contract is non exclusive, so you can certainly publish your work at Download Academic and elsewhere as well.  You can publish with us first, and then elsewhere — or elsewhere first, and then with us.

Of course, that's our point of view.  Journals and book publishers may have their own restrictions on multiple publication venues.  But these may be less constraining than you might think.

1. Once a work has been published in a journal — or at least once a certain length of time has elapsed since its publication date — the journal may not object to republication in another venue such as Download Academic, as long as the original publication is referenced.  This may be a matter of policy with a particular journal, or you may find it easy to obtain permission.  In fact, it may even enhance the name-recognition and circulation of the journal for it to be referenced so publicly as the venue of first publication for your work.
     
2. If your work has already been accepted by a slow-publication journal, they may not object to a pre-publication announcement/abstract publication at Download Academic which refers readers to the upcoming journal article for details.  In this situation, again, publication at Download Academic could actually enhance demand for the full journal article when it finally comes out.  Meanwhile, you can get all the benefits of rapid publication with Download Academic.
    
3. If your work is not yet complete enough to submit to a journal, you can still obtain all the benefits of publication at Download Academic (including precedence) by publishing a summary progress report with us, without necessarily jeapordizing your opportunity to publish a more complete report later in a traditional journal.

The key in every case is to find out exactly what policies pertain and what permissions you can obtain at the journal(s) in question — don't assume, ask — then stay strictly within the limits they permit.  You may be pleasantly surprised at how permissive those limits can be.

Why Download Academic? What need does it fill?

Download Academic fills a major gap in academic publishing.

Where is Download Academic located?

In Massachusetts, north of Boston.  Our address is on our contact page.

Who can submit material?

Authors need not be in academia in the strict sense. They can be affiliated with an academic or medical institution, or in industry or a profession, or working independently, or retired.  However, they are expected to have credentials or some basis for authority in their field, whether formal or not, which would be recognized as reasonable by a majority of their colleagues in that field.

In addition, you must either own the copyright to the work or have permission from the copyright owner(s). “Copyright” literally means “the right to copy.” Since you will be generating and selling copies of the work on our site, obviously you must have the right to do so. We require you to state that you have this right.  If another author were to challenge your right to publish at our site, your account with us would be at risk.

What kinds of material do you accept?

• We accept both new material and work which has been published elsewhere first.
• There are no a priori restrictions on subject matter.
• The material can be either research or instructional in nature, as well as general expositions of a particular field.
• Research need not be peer-reviewed.
• The length can be as short as the shortest research paper or as long as the longest book.

However, there are some boundaries . . .

• Even if your colleagues might disagree with the views you expressed, those views should be based on evidence and logic, taking reasonable account of the full scope of relevant knowledge and opinion in the field, even if that evidence and logic is somewhat flawed in its particulars.
• While the subject matter can be anything, and its presentation can be practical, pointed, pleasant or even playful, the focus must be the communication of knowledge, rather than, for example, polemic, promotion or entertainment.
• The target audience should be primarily colleagues, practitioners and students in the field.  This is not the place for cookbooks, self-help books and books to improve your golf swing, however authoritative they may be.

Are there any kinds of material that you won't accept?

Yes.  We will not, of course, accept material which are outside the scope indicated in the previous answer, or whose authors do not satisfy the criteria in the answer to the earlier question, "Who can submit material?"

Beyond that, unsuitable products may include material that, for example, constitutes or promotes obscenity or pornography; constitutes or promotes violence; constitutes or promotes hatred or revenge or acts motivated by same, constitutes or promotes discrimination based on nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or age; constitutes or promotes illegal activities; facilitates specifically illegal gambling, sweepstakes or lotteries; solicits money or investment contrary to applicable law or rule; includes "downloadpress" or variations or misspellings thereof in the Work submitted or ancillary materials thereof; states or implies that we endorse the Work; or otherwise violates intellectual property rights. 

We do not necessarily review all submissions in advance for compliance with these standards.  However, we will aggressively pursue any purported violations reported by our customers, and will remove confirmed violations without warning or refund.  For more information please read our Standards Policy.

What about works with multiple authors?

To submit a work to us, you must be one of the authors or editors. You must also, for legal reasons, obtain the permission of the other contributors. We do not check this, but you will be required to affirm that you have done so.

Since money is involved — the money for registration, displaying your work and other services you may purchase from us, as well as royalties you may earn from the sale of your work — you naturally have an obligation to explain these financial aspects to the other contributors and reach some kind of agreement with them concerning this. However, Download Academic does not involve itself with these arrangements. We collect all fees directly from you, and make all royalty payments directly to you. It is up to you to fulfill any financial arrangements that you made with other contributors. 

We do, though, offer an optional service whereby any parties you specify can log in and see you earnings for any specified work.  That way they can directly confirm whether you are correctly reporting your sales and earnings to them.

Why do you accept publications, authors and subjects that are not “strictly academic”?

It is no longer so simple to draw a sharp line between academia and the outside world. 

For example, many scientists and other scholars now work in industry, while industry has become a major funder of academic research.  Industry (in the broadest sense, including medicine and other applied professions) is a major consumer as well as producer of new knowledge.  Similarly, one cannot draw a sharp line between academic and non academic publication venues, or between acceptable and non acceptable credentials — but at the same time, these distinctions are not meaningless. 

Does a work have to be in English?

No, it can be in any language.  However, the description of the work on our site must be in English.  The site also tells customers what language(s) the work is in before they purchase.

What if the work was previously published?

If the work has already been published — say, in a journal — first see what kind of rights the journal claims.  If they only claim first publication rights, for example, then the rights automatically revert to you after release of the initial publication.  Or, the rights may be assigned to the author(s) directly. 

Usually, however, this will not be the case.  Then you must request permission in writing from the journal. They may already have a form or procedure for this. If their response is negative — which is most likely if they charge for reprints — you may be able to change their mind by promising not to compete with their pricing and/or to share your royalty revenue with them.

I teach.  Can I sell my instructional material here?

If you have developed your own instructional material, selling it at Download Academic is an excellent way to distribute it, both to your students and others.  You shouldn’t hesitate to put your book here just because it’s not for everybody.  No book is for everybody.  And Download Academic is the perfect place to post for a special audience.  Just tell them it’s here!

Furthermore, you can (1) set up a discount list of your students, so they can purchase your book for less than the regular price, and (2) purchase copy-protection to help ensure that your digital textbook is not illegally shared among your students.  This combination gives you the maximum assurance that your text will actually be purchased by your students.

My work is kind of a mess.  The headings, margins, all that stuff need to be formatted properly.  Can you fix it up so that it looks good?

Yes, we offer this to registered authors as a paid service, but it is limited to formatting, not editing the content.  (See the next question for that.)  After registering, you can send us your material and we'll quote on it, depending on the quantity and how much of a "mess" it is!

My work needs editing.  Will you edit my work for me?

Yes, as an optional service, for works which are in English.  You are responsible for editing your work before putting it up for sale at Download Academic.  However, we offer our expertise as one of the resources you could turn to for help with that.

To ensure that your work is properly edited, we suggest the following:

1. Do a thorough spell-check.  This is a must, but it’s not enough — even for spelling.  Typos can be correctly spelled words, and there’s a big difference between saying “We must not do this!” and “We must now do this!”

2. Do a grammar check with Microsoft Word or some other program.  Word allows you to specify (to some degree) which rules to check for, to allow for a more formal or informal style.

3. Read your work yourself — carefully, every word of it, even the parts you know well — looking for errors and making sure it makes sense.  Reading it aloud can help you catch errors as well as awkward passages.

4. Have a friend or colleague with excellent language skills read your work, looking for errors.

5. If feasible, have your work (article or book) professionally edited.  This is usually the best route.

Having outlined these do-it-yourself steps, we repeat that we do offer our own editing services as a convenient, professional way for you to fulfill this need.

Do you only publish downloadable products?

No. The medium can be downloadable (eBook) , CD-ROM or hard copy (paper). However, we require that every work we offer be available in a downloadable format (typically PDF). Other media (CD-ROM, paper) would count as additional products.

Print books can either be print-on-demand or print-in-advance.  Similarly, CD-ROMs can be either created as needed or in advance.  For both print and CD-ROM, creating them in bulk, in advance of when they are needed, costs less per copy, but creating them on-demand ensures that you pay only for those copies that are actually purchased by customers. 

Many factors go into determining the cost of creating print books or CD-ROMs, so we can only quote on a particular case based on the details.

My work isn’t quite ready yet.  If I sign up right now, does the “clock start ticking” right away on my registration and catalog display?

No, it doesn’t!  Any service you purchase at Download Academic must be used within a certain period — usually a year — or it will expire.  However, the clock does not begin ticking on the service itself until you have submitted content for it and we have approved that content.

Say, for example, you register and purchase a catalog display today, to take advantage of the savings in our current "special".  But you don’t submit your work (article or book) for three months.  At that time, within 7 days we'll “take it live,” that is, post your work (article or book) in our catalog.  The clock starts ticking on your one-year catalog display then, not now.  And the same is true of your registration.

How much do you pay in royalties?

Our starting royalties* on any particular work are very generous (60% after the first dollar on the purchase of each copy of the work in the case of a downloadable product, or eBook), but you can get an even larger royalty if the work does well.

After your first $1,000 in royalties for any eBook, we will increase your royalty rate for that work (article or book) from 60% to 65%.  And after your first $10,000, we will increase it again to 70%.  Finally, after your first $100,000, we will increase it once more to 75%.

Of course, it is rare (though not unheard of) that an academic work has dramatic earning potential  In most cases, we expect the motivation of our authors to be the convenient, efficient distribution of their work to colleagues, students and other interested parties.  Nevertheless, we have structured our system to give you the opportunity to make money in those cases where it is possible to do so.  At the least, we hope you will more than earn back your investment in our services.

* See the next question for the distinction between potential and actual royalties.

When people buy my work, how soon do I get my money?

Your accumulated unpaid royalties — for all your works collectively — are actually potential royalties until the total reaches $25.  At that point, they convert to actual royalties,  and subsequent additions to the total are also actual royalties until the end of the payment period — at which point that sum is set aside for payment, and the total is restet to zero.  Payment periods are as follows:  We will pay you after each half-month that your accumulated unpaid royalties reach $500, after each calendar month that they reach $100, or after each quarter that they reach $25. However, at the end of the payment period in which your registration with Download Academic terminates, we will convert any potential royalties to actual royalties scheduled for payment.

After each of those payment periods, we may take up to 60 days to pay, in order to be reasonably sure that the payments made to us for copies of your work will “stick”.  This period may be up to 90 days if we have reason to suspect the sales are fraudulent, and substantially less than 60 days if we are quite certain they are not.

We pay less frequently for smaller amounts because, as any business owner knows, paying a single invoice by check can involve a surprising amount of costly administrative time.  Our system assures you that we will not be holding large sums of your money for any longer than necessary.

Do your provide any guidelines for how much a particular work (article or book) should sell for?

Not specifically, because it depends on too many factors.  Instead, we allow you to experiment to see what pricing works best for you.  You can change the price of your work (article or book) instantly at any time, and can see sales results literally by the minute.

Here's an easy guideline, though.  Ask yourself who would be interested in your work, and then ask what it would be worth to them to have it.  The answer, of course, will vary tremendously depending on the field, and will be affected especially by whether it has commercial applications.

Another question you need to ask yourself is whether you are more interested in achieving a wide distribution of your work or making a profit from your sales.  With rare exceptions, these goals are in conflict with each other, and for most academic works (except books) the profit potential is too low to consider.  You'll be better off considering your fees at Download Academic to be a career investment, and pricing your work low to maximize distribution.

Can I offer my work at a discount price to certain groups?

Yes.  There are two ways to do this:

1. You can offer your work at a lower price to a defined list of people — for example, your students, or association members, or conference attendees.  You provide us with a list of email addresses, and we give you a special URL (not visible to the public) where they can log in and get the discount pricing.  You email this link to the list, and they log in with the address to which you sent the email.
    
2. You can offer your work at a lower price to a defined class of people — for example, if you believe your work has commercial value to industry, you can set your standard price for that audience, then offer a discount to customers with an academic email address.  Customers wanting the discount would need to provide their email address.  We'll check it according to predefined criteria.  If it meets those criteria, we will send them (instantly and automatically) an email allowing them access to the discount pricing.

You can set up any number of discounts of either or both types for a given work.  However, there is a non trivial setup fee for each discount.  Therefore, unless you believe your work would attract a sizable public audience (e.g., from industry) at a substantial price — and you are interested in the profit potential of your sales — we recommend selecting a single price for your work and keeping it on the low side.  Discounts would only be appropriate for works of significant industrial value.