Publishing Open Access Books

As a mission-driven university press, Liverpool University Press is committed to Open Access. We have been publishing Open Access books since 2010 (as part of OAPEN-UK with Jisc), we were the first publisher to sign up to Knowledge Unlatched and in 2014 we launched Modern Languages Open (MLO), a peer-reviewed online platform for the Open Access publication of research from across the modern languages to a global audience. We have created innovative Open Access e-textbooks on popular courses including Using Primary Sources and Essentials of Financial Management, and have published numerous Open Access monographs over the years, which are available on the Oapen Library. In addition to this, we established the Open Access Author Fund to support Open Access publications by early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences. We continue to explore Open Access opportunities and engage in discussions about Open Access with research funders, universities, academics and other publishers to improve the service we provide and uphold our aim of publishing the very best scholarship for the academic community. All books published on an Open Access licence go through the same rigorous editorial and peer review process as our non-Open Access publications and are published to the same high production standards we pride ourselves on (including professional copyediting, typesetting, and cover design).

All Open Access titles undergo extensive marketing, just like our non-Open Access publications: there is no difference in the time, attention and investment we put into our Open Access publications, only the final format is different.

Author submits OA book proposal.
Commissioning Editor conducts peer review and presents to Editorial Advisory Board.

Commissioning Editor offers a contract to author.
Funder or institution pays Book Processing Charge.

Author submits manuscript.
Commissioning Editor conducts peer review and discusses final revisions with Author.

Final manuscript handed to LUP's Head of Production for:

  • Copy-editing
  • Typesetting
  • Proof-reading
  • Cover design
  • Index

OA book assigned CC BY licence and uploaded on Oapen Library, DOAB and other platforms.
A paperback print on demand edition is made available.

LUP's Marketing team conduct a marketing strategy including but not limited to:
  • Reviews
  • Social media
  • Conferences
  • Mailing lists
  • Interviews
  • Podcasts
  • Flyers

Following are the details concerning our Green and Gold Open Access policies:

Green Open Access

Our Green Open Access policy allows the thesis or original manuscript the contracted Liverpool University Press work is based on (the pre-publisher version) to be archived by the author in an institutional repository on the following terms:

  • uploaded after an embargo period of 24 months after the publication of the contracted Liverpool University Press version, which must be acknowledged in the abstract. A link to the published edition on our website should also be included; 
  • the published edition by Liverpool University Press cannot be uploaded
  • the pre-publisher version can only be uploaded on a non-commercial, non-profit platform.

Gold Open Access Policy for Books 

Our Gold Open Access policy allows the Liverpool University Press edition of the work to be archived on publication in an institutional repository and on an Open Access platform such as the Oapen Library, and is subject to the following term:

  • a Books Processing Charge (BPC) will be required. As all books are different in terms of length and production requirements, please contact your commissioning editor for an exact figure. As a guide, for a manuscript of 100,000 words with no images, a BPC of £8,500 (plus VAT) would be required.
  • If a chapter is required to be Open Access in a book that will not as a whole be available Open Access, then there will be a Chapter Processing Charge (CPC) and the retail price of the final book will reduce accordingly. This is worked out as follows: the number of words in a chapter required to be OA is worked out as a percentage of the total word count in the manuscript (for example, 8,000 words of a 100,000 word manuscript is 8%). The CPC is therefore 8% of the £8,500 (plus VAT) BPC for a 100,0000 word manuscript, which is £680 (plus VAT). The price of the final book is subsequently reduced by 8%: for example, the original £80 retail price for a 100,000 word book becomes £73.60.

For both Green and Gold Open Access publications, the Creative Commons licence we recommend is CC BY-NC-ND, which allows an author’s work to be copied and shared (with attribution to the author as the creator of the work) but not altered in any way or put on a commercial platform. However, we are happy to accommodate other Creative Commons licences to fulfil the terms and conditions of funders.

Liverpool University Press is committed to supporting the academic community through Open Access and if you have any questions about our Open Access book policies, or wish to discuss an Open Access project, then please do not hesitate to contact Alison Welsby (Editorial Director).

For more information on open access book publishing, take a look at the OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit.

We also have some more information about publishing an Open Access book with LUP in this blog post written by our Editorial Director, Alison Welsby.