Lean scholarship: self-publishing scientific work

Journals charge authors to publish their work, limiting their ability to share research. Self-publishing is a novel way to circumvent this economic obstacle. Here are tips from my experience.

Every year we make resolutions to change the way we live our lives and/or conduct our business. Not everyone does, though, as some organizations need to keep things the same. The scientific publishing industry is in the latter camp. They immensely profit from their cost and revenue structure, which includes:

1. no-cost peer review(s), and (not or)

2. article processing charges for accepted manuscripts, and (not or)

3. readership fees (per article or by subscription).

I’m not here to criticize the publication industry because the market place allows for such legal, legitimate business practices to occur. However, I’m here to discuss another way of sharing your scientific work.

This work was published by me in Kidney News in May 2021.

First, you should know that I have self-published and traditionally published my scientific work. Currently, I choose to self-publish when I am the lead author and/or lead investigator. When I partner with colleagues, who have professional constraints that I don’t have anymore, we pursue traditional publishing first - sometimes exclusively.

My open-access work can be found on my website: https://sites.google.com/site/nephrologyondemand/products-services?authuser=0

It’s time we tackle the manner in which we convey scientific information with each other.  None of us were around when the conventions of scientific publishing were established, but all of us (producers (i.e., authors), judges (i.e., reviewers), and consumers (i.e., readers) of science) bear the burden of navigating through the publication process.  Currently we have a system where scientific producers pay to publish and forsake their rights to their product (i.e., paper), judges are expected to adjudicate science without tangible remuneration (at times they receive some dollar-store merch), and consumers must purchase that science without the benefit of the first-sale doctrine.  For decades we’ve convinced ourselves that we must bear these burdens if science is to be shared. 

That is not true anymore.

Here is what I dream about.

What if we could share science without the burdens above?  Can we innovate the manner in which we share scientific information?  For that innovation to happen, first we’d have to imagine a construct in which the producer of a scientific product makes available her/his work for free to anyone who wishes to read it.  There’d be no delay because the producer would decide when the science is ready to be shared. 

Then we’d have to imagine the scientific consumer using that product and returning to the producer her/his assessment of it.  Peer review(s) would be transformed into a non-anonymous democratized effort in which the consumer would have first-pass scrutiny of the science. 

Lastly, imagine the producer addressing the peer review(s) within the work itself so that the scientific product becomes a living document in which future consumers can read both the original version and the scientific discourse (i.e., the peer review and author response) it generated.  Transparent peer review could elucidate the science as much or more than the original scientific product itself. 

Stop imagining because such a construct already exists.  It’s called self-publishing.

Self-publishing is more than a disruptive publication method.  Self-publication is a duty that the producer and consumer have to one another.  A duty to release a good product in a timely manner to and without payment from the community. In return, the consumer must astutely judge the work and return a digitally signed assessment that is made transparent from which future consumers can learn.  All of the responsibilities encompassed in this duty must be fulfilled in order to best serve scientific communication; so, it’s not a surprise that self-publishing isn’t for everyone. 

Self-publishing is meant for those who are significantly disappointed with traditional publishing.  For some, the numerous avenues by which traditional publishers’ profit is the stimulus to enter the world of scientific self-publication.  For others it is the lack of transparent and/or democratized peer review.  Whatever your reason(s), if traditional publishing has left you with a recurrent bitter taste, know that self-publishing offers you another choice.

If you’ve self-published, are thinking about self-publishing, and/or still have questions about how to self-publish, leave a question or comment below.