Would a journal paying money for reviews, with open access and ad-based revenue, works?












11















I am considering developing a new journal, with an innovative publishing method, and would love to hear some insights.
The main concept is to change the review process. I would like to have a extra fast review period, by doing two things:




  1. All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic and more free time to quickly review a paper.

  2. Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive.


Also, all papers are open-access and there are no publication fees. The income would come from ads on the papers.
What do you think? Would you publish a paper in a journal like this? Would you be a reviewer?










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  • 16





    I don't think review in less than one week is very reasonable, at least in some fields like maths.

    – YiFan
    18 hours ago






  • 25





    "All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic..." Seems like a way to generate lower quality reviews.

    – user2768
    18 hours ago






  • 25





    "Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive." is nice to have but no incentive. It's an hourly rate of 2 to 5 USD. Sorry, my spare time is worth more. If I do the review during work hours (often the case), I'd have to give the money to my employer.

    – Roland
    17 hours ago






  • 16





    If I'm really busy, 100, let alone 10, USD are not an incentive to change my priorities to work on a review.

    – henning
    17 hours ago








  • 12





    I can't get past the "Ph.D students have more free time." I have no memory of free time when I was a grad student. And I was surely much slower at reviewing papers back then. My garbage detector is much more refined now than it was 30 years ago.

    – B. Goddard
    15 hours ago
















11















I am considering developing a new journal, with an innovative publishing method, and would love to hear some insights.
The main concept is to change the review process. I would like to have a extra fast review period, by doing two things:




  1. All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic and more free time to quickly review a paper.

  2. Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive.


Also, all papers are open-access and there are no publication fees. The income would come from ads on the papers.
What do you think? Would you publish a paper in a journal like this? Would you be a reviewer?










share|improve this question









New contributor




Andre is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
















  • 16





    I don't think review in less than one week is very reasonable, at least in some fields like maths.

    – YiFan
    18 hours ago






  • 25





    "All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic..." Seems like a way to generate lower quality reviews.

    – user2768
    18 hours ago






  • 25





    "Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive." is nice to have but no incentive. It's an hourly rate of 2 to 5 USD. Sorry, my spare time is worth more. If I do the review during work hours (often the case), I'd have to give the money to my employer.

    – Roland
    17 hours ago






  • 16





    If I'm really busy, 100, let alone 10, USD are not an incentive to change my priorities to work on a review.

    – henning
    17 hours ago








  • 12





    I can't get past the "Ph.D students have more free time." I have no memory of free time when I was a grad student. And I was surely much slower at reviewing papers back then. My garbage detector is much more refined now than it was 30 years ago.

    – B. Goddard
    15 hours ago














11












11








11


1






I am considering developing a new journal, with an innovative publishing method, and would love to hear some insights.
The main concept is to change the review process. I would like to have a extra fast review period, by doing two things:




  1. All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic and more free time to quickly review a paper.

  2. Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive.


Also, all papers are open-access and there are no publication fees. The income would come from ads on the papers.
What do you think? Would you publish a paper in a journal like this? Would you be a reviewer?










share|improve this question









New contributor




Andre is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.












I am considering developing a new journal, with an innovative publishing method, and would love to hear some insights.
The main concept is to change the review process. I would like to have a extra fast review period, by doing two things:




  1. All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic and more free time to quickly review a paper.

  2. Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive.


Also, all papers are open-access and there are no publication fees. The income would come from ads on the papers.
What do you think? Would you publish a paper in a journal like this? Would you be a reviewer?







journals peer-review open-access






share|improve this question









New contributor




Andre is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.











share|improve this question









New contributor




Andre is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 23 mins ago









Ooker

4,79053191




4,79053191






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asked 18 hours ago









AndreAndre

614




614




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New contributor





Andre is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.






Andre is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.








  • 16





    I don't think review in less than one week is very reasonable, at least in some fields like maths.

    – YiFan
    18 hours ago






  • 25





    "All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic..." Seems like a way to generate lower quality reviews.

    – user2768
    18 hours ago






  • 25





    "Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive." is nice to have but no incentive. It's an hourly rate of 2 to 5 USD. Sorry, my spare time is worth more. If I do the review during work hours (often the case), I'd have to give the money to my employer.

    – Roland
    17 hours ago






  • 16





    If I'm really busy, 100, let alone 10, USD are not an incentive to change my priorities to work on a review.

    – henning
    17 hours ago








  • 12





    I can't get past the "Ph.D students have more free time." I have no memory of free time when I was a grad student. And I was surely much slower at reviewing papers back then. My garbage detector is much more refined now than it was 30 years ago.

    – B. Goddard
    15 hours ago














  • 16





    I don't think review in less than one week is very reasonable, at least in some fields like maths.

    – YiFan
    18 hours ago






  • 25





    "All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic..." Seems like a way to generate lower quality reviews.

    – user2768
    18 hours ago






  • 25





    "Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive." is nice to have but no incentive. It's an hourly rate of 2 to 5 USD. Sorry, my spare time is worth more. If I do the review during work hours (often the case), I'd have to give the money to my employer.

    – Roland
    17 hours ago






  • 16





    If I'm really busy, 100, let alone 10, USD are not an incentive to change my priorities to work on a review.

    – henning
    17 hours ago








  • 12





    I can't get past the "Ph.D students have more free time." I have no memory of free time when I was a grad student. And I was surely much slower at reviewing papers back then. My garbage detector is much more refined now than it was 30 years ago.

    – B. Goddard
    15 hours ago








16




16





I don't think review in less than one week is very reasonable, at least in some fields like maths.

– YiFan
18 hours ago





I don't think review in less than one week is very reasonable, at least in some fields like maths.

– YiFan
18 hours ago




25




25





"All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic..." Seems like a way to generate lower quality reviews.

– user2768
18 hours ago





"All the reviewers should be still phd student or pos-docs students. They are the ones with higher knowledge on a specific topic..." Seems like a way to generate lower quality reviews.

– user2768
18 hours ago




25




25





"Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive." is nice to have but no incentive. It's an hourly rate of 2 to 5 USD. Sorry, my spare time is worth more. If I do the review during work hours (often the case), I'd have to give the money to my employer.

– Roland
17 hours ago





"Reviewers get paid if they review in less than one week, lets say 10 USD, as an incentive." is nice to have but no incentive. It's an hourly rate of 2 to 5 USD. Sorry, my spare time is worth more. If I do the review during work hours (often the case), I'd have to give the money to my employer.

– Roland
17 hours ago




16




16





If I'm really busy, 100, let alone 10, USD are not an incentive to change my priorities to work on a review.

– henning
17 hours ago







If I'm really busy, 100, let alone 10, USD are not an incentive to change my priorities to work on a review.

– henning
17 hours ago






12




12





I can't get past the "Ph.D students have more free time." I have no memory of free time when I was a grad student. And I was surely much slower at reviewing papers back then. My garbage detector is much more refined now than it was 30 years ago.

– B. Goddard
15 hours ago





I can't get past the "Ph.D students have more free time." I have no memory of free time when I was a grad student. And I was surely much slower at reviewing papers back then. My garbage detector is much more refined now than it was 30 years ago.

– B. Goddard
15 hours ago










5 Answers
5






active

oldest

votes


















30














Your idea has no chance of success. I'll ignore the part about reviewers being PhD students and postdocs and just look at the publishing model, because that alone is enough to sink the concept.



Ad revenue is not enough to sustain a journal. Just consider: who is willing to pay to advertise in a journal?




  • You might be able to get some ad revenue in a print journal, but as a whole, print is declining (maybe ~20% of the journal market at this point and dropping), plus with the most lucrative markets (developed countries) almost fully using electronic articles, you're not going to reach much of an audience that advertisers will be interested in.

  • Plus, if you do print your journal, you have printing costs to pay for.

  • Even if you go fully electronic, academic journals don't have nearly enough readership to attract advertisers. Just compare how many subscribers you need on a YouTube channel to monetize content (I use YouTube because this is also an advertisement-driven service). YouTube wants one thousand subscribers. Academic articles don't come close to 1,000 readers on average.

  • And to top it off, not only are you generating no revenue (diamond open access), you want to pay your reviewers. Where are you going to get the money from? You can beg your editorial board members work for free, you can use a free editorial-management system, you can outsource copyediting and typesetting to the authors, you can ignore marketing your journal, you can strongarm your institution to host your journal's webpage for free ... but paying reviewers involves cold hard cash.


The only way this can work is if you manage to secure renewable, external funding. Depending on how much you're willing to skimp on a journal's operating costs, as well as on how many articles your journal gets, you might not need more than a couple of thousand dollars every year. However even this level of funding is not easy to get. There's a reason why diamond open access journals are rare.



tl; dr: you can try, but expect to fail.






share|improve this answer





















  • 6





    I would also add the questionable ethics: running ads means that the customers are the companies who pay for these ads. It's going to raise all sorts of conflict of interests: they might demand that you don't publish a paper against their interests, they might display content that undermines the findings of the papers, etc. Even if the publisher is very careful, there will always be a doubt about the neutrality of the science they publish.

    – Erwan
    16 hours ago






  • 1





    @Erwan Maybe. Then again, having ads in scientific journals is par for the course.

    – Konrad Rudolph
    13 hours ago






  • 1





    Some journals may attract enough advertisers to make a difference. Medical journals, say, with ads for medical equipment and for prescription drugs. But I agree, most academic journals do not.

    – GEdgar
    13 hours ago











  • 20%? I wouldn't have guessed it was higher than 0%. Who is still using print journals?

    – Azor Ahai
    11 hours ago






  • 3





    @AzorAhai I think that 20% figure is revenue, not readership. Some libraries may still be getting print versions. (It's potentially a good idea because, if you end your subscription, you still have the physical print version, while online access is revoked.)

    – Thomas
    9 hours ago



















11














The first thing you need to do when developing a new service is to come up with a realistic business case. What are your fixed and variable costs, and what kind of revenue you can expect?



Fixed costs: at least costs for hosting your website and papers, staff (maybe you initially will run everything yourself in your free time, but if this should become a real business you need to envision a future where you can't do it all on your own anymore), advertisement. All together not too bad (probably).



Variable costs: if you pay a modest 10USD per review, every article will cost you at least 20USD or 30USD to produce. Additionally, you may want to pay editors as well (why would they work for free if the reviewers get payed?). This sounds like peanuts, but it adds up since you are paying this upfront and for every submitted (not only accepted) article, and even for the ones that get viewed less than a 100 times in their lifetime. One journal that I am in the Editorial Board for accepts about 20% of submissions, so your unit costs of an accepted article may be in the range of 100USD or more.



Expected revenue: it is unclear to me if you want to put ads on the website, on the papers, or both. In any case, advertisement revenues live from large numbers of views. Nobody pays you to advertise contents that a few hundred people look at every month. In journals such as PeerJ you can figure out how many views articles typically get, while data from platforms such as Youtube can give you an impression of how many views per paper you will need to offset the variable costs. However, do take into account that views follow a long tail distribution - most content basically nobody ever looks at, so your high runners need to make up for it. This is true for all platforms - Youtube does not earn money with most videos, but when it does, it often makes a lot of money. It is unclear to me how many scientific articles you can expect that would hold the same mass market appeal.



All in all, I am not buying the business case based on this napkin calculation, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility that it could work out financially. You will need to do your own estimations.



That said, you also have some other considerations (which may also sink your business even if the monetary side would in theory work out):




  • Bootstrapping a journal outside of the big, established organizations (Springer, ACM, IEEE, ...) is hard. Authors today live and die based on reputation of the journals that they publish in, and your new journal will need to fight to be seen as serious. That it also operates differently will be a strike against it in this dimension. I assume that you hope that your fast reviews will provide sufficient incentives for authors, but I am not buying it - fast reviews are not typically considered to correlate with quality, and neither is that the reviews are done by PhD students and postdocs. You personally may be convinced that PhD students write better reviews than senior academics, but the larger academic world is unlikely to agree. If you want your business to succeed, the community needs to buy into your premise.

  • Another aspect that may be held against your journal is that your journal has somewhat unfortunate incentives: it is better for you to accept than to reject (given that rejected articles incur costs but never lead to revenue), and it is even better to accept highly controversial (but wrong) articles that get viewed a lot. Even if your journal never gives in to these temptations, I foresee that there will be a certain level of mistrust hanging over the scientific trustworthiness of your journal.






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    9














    So the deal is that if you drop everything else you are working on to do a review in a week, you earn $10?



    I think you need to reconsider that business model, or at least, make the gain worth the disruption. $100 might work better than $10 for "impoverished" grad students, but it's still only chicken feed for a professional.



    If somebody offered to pay me $10 to review something, I would put in the amount of effort that $10 was worth. That's probably about 5 minutes of my time - long enough to flick through the pages, and write a couple of sentences saying "awesome" or "garbage". That counts as "a review", yes?



    The above intentionally avoids the question of whether the whole idea is ethical from an academic point of view, but if it won't work as a business model, the question of ethics doesn't matter much.






    share|improve this answer
























    • $100 (or preferably £100) would have made a lot of difference to me as a grad student. I agree with your $10 assessment.

      – thosphor
      12 hours ago



















    2














    It isn't exactly an academic journal, but Scientific American is a high-quality publication in which advertising is a large part of their business model. But, the way they make things work is by being a reasonably popular publication. Without the popularity, the advertising wouldn't generate enough revenue (why would advertisers pay for ads unlikely to be seen by many?). Furthermore, they wouldn't keep the readership that they have unless they maintain a consistent high quality in what they publish -- where quality isn't just measured in terms of accuracy but also depends on writing quality and anticipated reader interest. They couldn't function if they relied on poorly-paid graduate students rather than professional editors to decide on what gets published. Your desired properties of being quickly-reviewed and advertiser-supported pull in opposite directions.






    share|improve this answer































      1














      As others have stated, your approach is a bit naive, but I don't think it's unreal. Just improbable. If you are going for a new concept do it properly. 10$ is effectively zero. Consider paying hundreds per review.



      Also consider paying real fees to authors. Almost every periodical except academic ones pay their authors. Newspapers do, tabloids do, comic journals do...



      Should the access be free? Preferrably, but I don't think it's mandatory. People pay for Scientific American and The Economist. Why wouldn't they pay for a good academic journal? Of course, not the current fees but prices comparable to normal journals like the ones I mentioned.



      Now how do you pull it off? Who's gonna pay for it?



      For an inspiring example in another area, see https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/ - here's a bunch of companies who are paying so every website could have an SSL certificate for free. I think it is possible to convince companies like Google or Facebook to sponsor academia, especially if you are going to improve a field that they care about, say - AI research.



      I don't think you can survive on ads. For most fields there's no one audience. Like what are you going to sell to AI geeks or statisticians? Few of them are interested in hats, some in chess and others like cooking. It's not like you are going to sell them calculators and I doubt it's even worth advertising professional products like SPSS to them...






      share|improve this answer























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        5 Answers
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        5 Answers
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        30














        Your idea has no chance of success. I'll ignore the part about reviewers being PhD students and postdocs and just look at the publishing model, because that alone is enough to sink the concept.



        Ad revenue is not enough to sustain a journal. Just consider: who is willing to pay to advertise in a journal?




        • You might be able to get some ad revenue in a print journal, but as a whole, print is declining (maybe ~20% of the journal market at this point and dropping), plus with the most lucrative markets (developed countries) almost fully using electronic articles, you're not going to reach much of an audience that advertisers will be interested in.

        • Plus, if you do print your journal, you have printing costs to pay for.

        • Even if you go fully electronic, academic journals don't have nearly enough readership to attract advertisers. Just compare how many subscribers you need on a YouTube channel to monetize content (I use YouTube because this is also an advertisement-driven service). YouTube wants one thousand subscribers. Academic articles don't come close to 1,000 readers on average.

        • And to top it off, not only are you generating no revenue (diamond open access), you want to pay your reviewers. Where are you going to get the money from? You can beg your editorial board members work for free, you can use a free editorial-management system, you can outsource copyediting and typesetting to the authors, you can ignore marketing your journal, you can strongarm your institution to host your journal's webpage for free ... but paying reviewers involves cold hard cash.


        The only way this can work is if you manage to secure renewable, external funding. Depending on how much you're willing to skimp on a journal's operating costs, as well as on how many articles your journal gets, you might not need more than a couple of thousand dollars every year. However even this level of funding is not easy to get. There's a reason why diamond open access journals are rare.



        tl; dr: you can try, but expect to fail.






        share|improve this answer





















        • 6





          I would also add the questionable ethics: running ads means that the customers are the companies who pay for these ads. It's going to raise all sorts of conflict of interests: they might demand that you don't publish a paper against their interests, they might display content that undermines the findings of the papers, etc. Even if the publisher is very careful, there will always be a doubt about the neutrality of the science they publish.

          – Erwan
          16 hours ago






        • 1





          @Erwan Maybe. Then again, having ads in scientific journals is par for the course.

          – Konrad Rudolph
          13 hours ago






        • 1





          Some journals may attract enough advertisers to make a difference. Medical journals, say, with ads for medical equipment and for prescription drugs. But I agree, most academic journals do not.

          – GEdgar
          13 hours ago











        • 20%? I wouldn't have guessed it was higher than 0%. Who is still using print journals?

          – Azor Ahai
          11 hours ago






        • 3





          @AzorAhai I think that 20% figure is revenue, not readership. Some libraries may still be getting print versions. (It's potentially a good idea because, if you end your subscription, you still have the physical print version, while online access is revoked.)

          – Thomas
          9 hours ago
















        30














        Your idea has no chance of success. I'll ignore the part about reviewers being PhD students and postdocs and just look at the publishing model, because that alone is enough to sink the concept.



        Ad revenue is not enough to sustain a journal. Just consider: who is willing to pay to advertise in a journal?




        • You might be able to get some ad revenue in a print journal, but as a whole, print is declining (maybe ~20% of the journal market at this point and dropping), plus with the most lucrative markets (developed countries) almost fully using electronic articles, you're not going to reach much of an audience that advertisers will be interested in.

        • Plus, if you do print your journal, you have printing costs to pay for.

        • Even if you go fully electronic, academic journals don't have nearly enough readership to attract advertisers. Just compare how many subscribers you need on a YouTube channel to monetize content (I use YouTube because this is also an advertisement-driven service). YouTube wants one thousand subscribers. Academic articles don't come close to 1,000 readers on average.

        • And to top it off, not only are you generating no revenue (diamond open access), you want to pay your reviewers. Where are you going to get the money from? You can beg your editorial board members work for free, you can use a free editorial-management system, you can outsource copyediting and typesetting to the authors, you can ignore marketing your journal, you can strongarm your institution to host your journal's webpage for free ... but paying reviewers involves cold hard cash.


        The only way this can work is if you manage to secure renewable, external funding. Depending on how much you're willing to skimp on a journal's operating costs, as well as on how many articles your journal gets, you might not need more than a couple of thousand dollars every year. However even this level of funding is not easy to get. There's a reason why diamond open access journals are rare.



        tl; dr: you can try, but expect to fail.






        share|improve this answer





















        • 6





          I would also add the questionable ethics: running ads means that the customers are the companies who pay for these ads. It's going to raise all sorts of conflict of interests: they might demand that you don't publish a paper against their interests, they might display content that undermines the findings of the papers, etc. Even if the publisher is very careful, there will always be a doubt about the neutrality of the science they publish.

          – Erwan
          16 hours ago






        • 1





          @Erwan Maybe. Then again, having ads in scientific journals is par for the course.

          – Konrad Rudolph
          13 hours ago






        • 1





          Some journals may attract enough advertisers to make a difference. Medical journals, say, with ads for medical equipment and for prescription drugs. But I agree, most academic journals do not.

          – GEdgar
          13 hours ago











        • 20%? I wouldn't have guessed it was higher than 0%. Who is still using print journals?

          – Azor Ahai
          11 hours ago






        • 3





          @AzorAhai I think that 20% figure is revenue, not readership. Some libraries may still be getting print versions. (It's potentially a good idea because, if you end your subscription, you still have the physical print version, while online access is revoked.)

          – Thomas
          9 hours ago














        30












        30








        30







        Your idea has no chance of success. I'll ignore the part about reviewers being PhD students and postdocs and just look at the publishing model, because that alone is enough to sink the concept.



        Ad revenue is not enough to sustain a journal. Just consider: who is willing to pay to advertise in a journal?




        • You might be able to get some ad revenue in a print journal, but as a whole, print is declining (maybe ~20% of the journal market at this point and dropping), plus with the most lucrative markets (developed countries) almost fully using electronic articles, you're not going to reach much of an audience that advertisers will be interested in.

        • Plus, if you do print your journal, you have printing costs to pay for.

        • Even if you go fully electronic, academic journals don't have nearly enough readership to attract advertisers. Just compare how many subscribers you need on a YouTube channel to monetize content (I use YouTube because this is also an advertisement-driven service). YouTube wants one thousand subscribers. Academic articles don't come close to 1,000 readers on average.

        • And to top it off, not only are you generating no revenue (diamond open access), you want to pay your reviewers. Where are you going to get the money from? You can beg your editorial board members work for free, you can use a free editorial-management system, you can outsource copyediting and typesetting to the authors, you can ignore marketing your journal, you can strongarm your institution to host your journal's webpage for free ... but paying reviewers involves cold hard cash.


        The only way this can work is if you manage to secure renewable, external funding. Depending on how much you're willing to skimp on a journal's operating costs, as well as on how many articles your journal gets, you might not need more than a couple of thousand dollars every year. However even this level of funding is not easy to get. There's a reason why diamond open access journals are rare.



        tl; dr: you can try, but expect to fail.






        share|improve this answer















        Your idea has no chance of success. I'll ignore the part about reviewers being PhD students and postdocs and just look at the publishing model, because that alone is enough to sink the concept.



        Ad revenue is not enough to sustain a journal. Just consider: who is willing to pay to advertise in a journal?




        • You might be able to get some ad revenue in a print journal, but as a whole, print is declining (maybe ~20% of the journal market at this point and dropping), plus with the most lucrative markets (developed countries) almost fully using electronic articles, you're not going to reach much of an audience that advertisers will be interested in.

        • Plus, if you do print your journal, you have printing costs to pay for.

        • Even if you go fully electronic, academic journals don't have nearly enough readership to attract advertisers. Just compare how many subscribers you need on a YouTube channel to monetize content (I use YouTube because this is also an advertisement-driven service). YouTube wants one thousand subscribers. Academic articles don't come close to 1,000 readers on average.

        • And to top it off, not only are you generating no revenue (diamond open access), you want to pay your reviewers. Where are you going to get the money from? You can beg your editorial board members work for free, you can use a free editorial-management system, you can outsource copyediting and typesetting to the authors, you can ignore marketing your journal, you can strongarm your institution to host your journal's webpage for free ... but paying reviewers involves cold hard cash.


        The only way this can work is if you manage to secure renewable, external funding. Depending on how much you're willing to skimp on a journal's operating costs, as well as on how many articles your journal gets, you might not need more than a couple of thousand dollars every year. However even this level of funding is not easy to get. There's a reason why diamond open access journals are rare.



        tl; dr: you can try, but expect to fail.







        share|improve this answer














        share|improve this answer



        share|improve this answer








        edited 17 hours ago

























        answered 18 hours ago









        AllureAllure

        30.7k1895147




        30.7k1895147








        • 6





          I would also add the questionable ethics: running ads means that the customers are the companies who pay for these ads. It's going to raise all sorts of conflict of interests: they might demand that you don't publish a paper against their interests, they might display content that undermines the findings of the papers, etc. Even if the publisher is very careful, there will always be a doubt about the neutrality of the science they publish.

          – Erwan
          16 hours ago






        • 1





          @Erwan Maybe. Then again, having ads in scientific journals is par for the course.

          – Konrad Rudolph
          13 hours ago






        • 1





          Some journals may attract enough advertisers to make a difference. Medical journals, say, with ads for medical equipment and for prescription drugs. But I agree, most academic journals do not.

          – GEdgar
          13 hours ago











        • 20%? I wouldn't have guessed it was higher than 0%. Who is still using print journals?

          – Azor Ahai
          11 hours ago






        • 3





          @AzorAhai I think that 20% figure is revenue, not readership. Some libraries may still be getting print versions. (It's potentially a good idea because, if you end your subscription, you still have the physical print version, while online access is revoked.)

          – Thomas
          9 hours ago














        • 6





          I would also add the questionable ethics: running ads means that the customers are the companies who pay for these ads. It's going to raise all sorts of conflict of interests: they might demand that you don't publish a paper against their interests, they might display content that undermines the findings of the papers, etc. Even if the publisher is very careful, there will always be a doubt about the neutrality of the science they publish.

          – Erwan
          16 hours ago






        • 1





          @Erwan Maybe. Then again, having ads in scientific journals is par for the course.

          – Konrad Rudolph
          13 hours ago






        • 1





          Some journals may attract enough advertisers to make a difference. Medical journals, say, with ads for medical equipment and for prescription drugs. But I agree, most academic journals do not.

          – GEdgar
          13 hours ago











        • 20%? I wouldn't have guessed it was higher than 0%. Who is still using print journals?

          – Azor Ahai
          11 hours ago






        • 3





          @AzorAhai I think that 20% figure is revenue, not readership. Some libraries may still be getting print versions. (It's potentially a good idea because, if you end your subscription, you still have the physical print version, while online access is revoked.)

          – Thomas
          9 hours ago








        6




        6





        I would also add the questionable ethics: running ads means that the customers are the companies who pay for these ads. It's going to raise all sorts of conflict of interests: they might demand that you don't publish a paper against their interests, they might display content that undermines the findings of the papers, etc. Even if the publisher is very careful, there will always be a doubt about the neutrality of the science they publish.

        – Erwan
        16 hours ago





        I would also add the questionable ethics: running ads means that the customers are the companies who pay for these ads. It's going to raise all sorts of conflict of interests: they might demand that you don't publish a paper against their interests, they might display content that undermines the findings of the papers, etc. Even if the publisher is very careful, there will always be a doubt about the neutrality of the science they publish.

        – Erwan
        16 hours ago




        1




        1





        @Erwan Maybe. Then again, having ads in scientific journals is par for the course.

        – Konrad Rudolph
        13 hours ago





        @Erwan Maybe. Then again, having ads in scientific journals is par for the course.

        – Konrad Rudolph
        13 hours ago




        1




        1





        Some journals may attract enough advertisers to make a difference. Medical journals, say, with ads for medical equipment and for prescription drugs. But I agree, most academic journals do not.

        – GEdgar
        13 hours ago





        Some journals may attract enough advertisers to make a difference. Medical journals, say, with ads for medical equipment and for prescription drugs. But I agree, most academic journals do not.

        – GEdgar
        13 hours ago













        20%? I wouldn't have guessed it was higher than 0%. Who is still using print journals?

        – Azor Ahai
        11 hours ago





        20%? I wouldn't have guessed it was higher than 0%. Who is still using print journals?

        – Azor Ahai
        11 hours ago




        3




        3





        @AzorAhai I think that 20% figure is revenue, not readership. Some libraries may still be getting print versions. (It's potentially a good idea because, if you end your subscription, you still have the physical print version, while online access is revoked.)

        – Thomas
        9 hours ago





        @AzorAhai I think that 20% figure is revenue, not readership. Some libraries may still be getting print versions. (It's potentially a good idea because, if you end your subscription, you still have the physical print version, while online access is revoked.)

        – Thomas
        9 hours ago











        11














        The first thing you need to do when developing a new service is to come up with a realistic business case. What are your fixed and variable costs, and what kind of revenue you can expect?



        Fixed costs: at least costs for hosting your website and papers, staff (maybe you initially will run everything yourself in your free time, but if this should become a real business you need to envision a future where you can't do it all on your own anymore), advertisement. All together not too bad (probably).



        Variable costs: if you pay a modest 10USD per review, every article will cost you at least 20USD or 30USD to produce. Additionally, you may want to pay editors as well (why would they work for free if the reviewers get payed?). This sounds like peanuts, but it adds up since you are paying this upfront and for every submitted (not only accepted) article, and even for the ones that get viewed less than a 100 times in their lifetime. One journal that I am in the Editorial Board for accepts about 20% of submissions, so your unit costs of an accepted article may be in the range of 100USD or more.



        Expected revenue: it is unclear to me if you want to put ads on the website, on the papers, or both. In any case, advertisement revenues live from large numbers of views. Nobody pays you to advertise contents that a few hundred people look at every month. In journals such as PeerJ you can figure out how many views articles typically get, while data from platforms such as Youtube can give you an impression of how many views per paper you will need to offset the variable costs. However, do take into account that views follow a long tail distribution - most content basically nobody ever looks at, so your high runners need to make up for it. This is true for all platforms - Youtube does not earn money with most videos, but when it does, it often makes a lot of money. It is unclear to me how many scientific articles you can expect that would hold the same mass market appeal.



        All in all, I am not buying the business case based on this napkin calculation, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility that it could work out financially. You will need to do your own estimations.



        That said, you also have some other considerations (which may also sink your business even if the monetary side would in theory work out):




        • Bootstrapping a journal outside of the big, established organizations (Springer, ACM, IEEE, ...) is hard. Authors today live and die based on reputation of the journals that they publish in, and your new journal will need to fight to be seen as serious. That it also operates differently will be a strike against it in this dimension. I assume that you hope that your fast reviews will provide sufficient incentives for authors, but I am not buying it - fast reviews are not typically considered to correlate with quality, and neither is that the reviews are done by PhD students and postdocs. You personally may be convinced that PhD students write better reviews than senior academics, but the larger academic world is unlikely to agree. If you want your business to succeed, the community needs to buy into your premise.

        • Another aspect that may be held against your journal is that your journal has somewhat unfortunate incentives: it is better for you to accept than to reject (given that rejected articles incur costs but never lead to revenue), and it is even better to accept highly controversial (but wrong) articles that get viewed a lot. Even if your journal never gives in to these temptations, I foresee that there will be a certain level of mistrust hanging over the scientific trustworthiness of your journal.






        share|improve this answer




























          11














          The first thing you need to do when developing a new service is to come up with a realistic business case. What are your fixed and variable costs, and what kind of revenue you can expect?



          Fixed costs: at least costs for hosting your website and papers, staff (maybe you initially will run everything yourself in your free time, but if this should become a real business you need to envision a future where you can't do it all on your own anymore), advertisement. All together not too bad (probably).



          Variable costs: if you pay a modest 10USD per review, every article will cost you at least 20USD or 30USD to produce. Additionally, you may want to pay editors as well (why would they work for free if the reviewers get payed?). This sounds like peanuts, but it adds up since you are paying this upfront and for every submitted (not only accepted) article, and even for the ones that get viewed less than a 100 times in their lifetime. One journal that I am in the Editorial Board for accepts about 20% of submissions, so your unit costs of an accepted article may be in the range of 100USD or more.



          Expected revenue: it is unclear to me if you want to put ads on the website, on the papers, or both. In any case, advertisement revenues live from large numbers of views. Nobody pays you to advertise contents that a few hundred people look at every month. In journals such as PeerJ you can figure out how many views articles typically get, while data from platforms such as Youtube can give you an impression of how many views per paper you will need to offset the variable costs. However, do take into account that views follow a long tail distribution - most content basically nobody ever looks at, so your high runners need to make up for it. This is true for all platforms - Youtube does not earn money with most videos, but when it does, it often makes a lot of money. It is unclear to me how many scientific articles you can expect that would hold the same mass market appeal.



          All in all, I am not buying the business case based on this napkin calculation, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility that it could work out financially. You will need to do your own estimations.



          That said, you also have some other considerations (which may also sink your business even if the monetary side would in theory work out):




          • Bootstrapping a journal outside of the big, established organizations (Springer, ACM, IEEE, ...) is hard. Authors today live and die based on reputation of the journals that they publish in, and your new journal will need to fight to be seen as serious. That it also operates differently will be a strike against it in this dimension. I assume that you hope that your fast reviews will provide sufficient incentives for authors, but I am not buying it - fast reviews are not typically considered to correlate with quality, and neither is that the reviews are done by PhD students and postdocs. You personally may be convinced that PhD students write better reviews than senior academics, but the larger academic world is unlikely to agree. If you want your business to succeed, the community needs to buy into your premise.

          • Another aspect that may be held against your journal is that your journal has somewhat unfortunate incentives: it is better for you to accept than to reject (given that rejected articles incur costs but never lead to revenue), and it is even better to accept highly controversial (but wrong) articles that get viewed a lot. Even if your journal never gives in to these temptations, I foresee that there will be a certain level of mistrust hanging over the scientific trustworthiness of your journal.






          share|improve this answer


























            11












            11








            11







            The first thing you need to do when developing a new service is to come up with a realistic business case. What are your fixed and variable costs, and what kind of revenue you can expect?



            Fixed costs: at least costs for hosting your website and papers, staff (maybe you initially will run everything yourself in your free time, but if this should become a real business you need to envision a future where you can't do it all on your own anymore), advertisement. All together not too bad (probably).



            Variable costs: if you pay a modest 10USD per review, every article will cost you at least 20USD or 30USD to produce. Additionally, you may want to pay editors as well (why would they work for free if the reviewers get payed?). This sounds like peanuts, but it adds up since you are paying this upfront and for every submitted (not only accepted) article, and even for the ones that get viewed less than a 100 times in their lifetime. One journal that I am in the Editorial Board for accepts about 20% of submissions, so your unit costs of an accepted article may be in the range of 100USD or more.



            Expected revenue: it is unclear to me if you want to put ads on the website, on the papers, or both. In any case, advertisement revenues live from large numbers of views. Nobody pays you to advertise contents that a few hundred people look at every month. In journals such as PeerJ you can figure out how many views articles typically get, while data from platforms such as Youtube can give you an impression of how many views per paper you will need to offset the variable costs. However, do take into account that views follow a long tail distribution - most content basically nobody ever looks at, so your high runners need to make up for it. This is true for all platforms - Youtube does not earn money with most videos, but when it does, it often makes a lot of money. It is unclear to me how many scientific articles you can expect that would hold the same mass market appeal.



            All in all, I am not buying the business case based on this napkin calculation, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility that it could work out financially. You will need to do your own estimations.



            That said, you also have some other considerations (which may also sink your business even if the monetary side would in theory work out):




            • Bootstrapping a journal outside of the big, established organizations (Springer, ACM, IEEE, ...) is hard. Authors today live and die based on reputation of the journals that they publish in, and your new journal will need to fight to be seen as serious. That it also operates differently will be a strike against it in this dimension. I assume that you hope that your fast reviews will provide sufficient incentives for authors, but I am not buying it - fast reviews are not typically considered to correlate with quality, and neither is that the reviews are done by PhD students and postdocs. You personally may be convinced that PhD students write better reviews than senior academics, but the larger academic world is unlikely to agree. If you want your business to succeed, the community needs to buy into your premise.

            • Another aspect that may be held against your journal is that your journal has somewhat unfortunate incentives: it is better for you to accept than to reject (given that rejected articles incur costs but never lead to revenue), and it is even better to accept highly controversial (but wrong) articles that get viewed a lot. Even if your journal never gives in to these temptations, I foresee that there will be a certain level of mistrust hanging over the scientific trustworthiness of your journal.






            share|improve this answer













            The first thing you need to do when developing a new service is to come up with a realistic business case. What are your fixed and variable costs, and what kind of revenue you can expect?



            Fixed costs: at least costs for hosting your website and papers, staff (maybe you initially will run everything yourself in your free time, but if this should become a real business you need to envision a future where you can't do it all on your own anymore), advertisement. All together not too bad (probably).



            Variable costs: if you pay a modest 10USD per review, every article will cost you at least 20USD or 30USD to produce. Additionally, you may want to pay editors as well (why would they work for free if the reviewers get payed?). This sounds like peanuts, but it adds up since you are paying this upfront and for every submitted (not only accepted) article, and even for the ones that get viewed less than a 100 times in their lifetime. One journal that I am in the Editorial Board for accepts about 20% of submissions, so your unit costs of an accepted article may be in the range of 100USD or more.



            Expected revenue: it is unclear to me if you want to put ads on the website, on the papers, or both. In any case, advertisement revenues live from large numbers of views. Nobody pays you to advertise contents that a few hundred people look at every month. In journals such as PeerJ you can figure out how many views articles typically get, while data from platforms such as Youtube can give you an impression of how many views per paper you will need to offset the variable costs. However, do take into account that views follow a long tail distribution - most content basically nobody ever looks at, so your high runners need to make up for it. This is true for all platforms - Youtube does not earn money with most videos, but when it does, it often makes a lot of money. It is unclear to me how many scientific articles you can expect that would hold the same mass market appeal.



            All in all, I am not buying the business case based on this napkin calculation, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility that it could work out financially. You will need to do your own estimations.



            That said, you also have some other considerations (which may also sink your business even if the monetary side would in theory work out):




            • Bootstrapping a journal outside of the big, established organizations (Springer, ACM, IEEE, ...) is hard. Authors today live and die based on reputation of the journals that they publish in, and your new journal will need to fight to be seen as serious. That it also operates differently will be a strike against it in this dimension. I assume that you hope that your fast reviews will provide sufficient incentives for authors, but I am not buying it - fast reviews are not typically considered to correlate with quality, and neither is that the reviews are done by PhD students and postdocs. You personally may be convinced that PhD students write better reviews than senior academics, but the larger academic world is unlikely to agree. If you want your business to succeed, the community needs to buy into your premise.

            • Another aspect that may be held against your journal is that your journal has somewhat unfortunate incentives: it is better for you to accept than to reject (given that rejected articles incur costs but never lead to revenue), and it is even better to accept highly controversial (but wrong) articles that get viewed a lot. Even if your journal never gives in to these temptations, I foresee that there will be a certain level of mistrust hanging over the scientific trustworthiness of your journal.







            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered 17 hours ago









            xLeitixxLeitix

            101k35243384




            101k35243384























                9














                So the deal is that if you drop everything else you are working on to do a review in a week, you earn $10?



                I think you need to reconsider that business model, or at least, make the gain worth the disruption. $100 might work better than $10 for "impoverished" grad students, but it's still only chicken feed for a professional.



                If somebody offered to pay me $10 to review something, I would put in the amount of effort that $10 was worth. That's probably about 5 minutes of my time - long enough to flick through the pages, and write a couple of sentences saying "awesome" or "garbage". That counts as "a review", yes?



                The above intentionally avoids the question of whether the whole idea is ethical from an academic point of view, but if it won't work as a business model, the question of ethics doesn't matter much.






                share|improve this answer
























                • $100 (or preferably £100) would have made a lot of difference to me as a grad student. I agree with your $10 assessment.

                  – thosphor
                  12 hours ago
















                9














                So the deal is that if you drop everything else you are working on to do a review in a week, you earn $10?



                I think you need to reconsider that business model, or at least, make the gain worth the disruption. $100 might work better than $10 for "impoverished" grad students, but it's still only chicken feed for a professional.



                If somebody offered to pay me $10 to review something, I would put in the amount of effort that $10 was worth. That's probably about 5 minutes of my time - long enough to flick through the pages, and write a couple of sentences saying "awesome" or "garbage". That counts as "a review", yes?



                The above intentionally avoids the question of whether the whole idea is ethical from an academic point of view, but if it won't work as a business model, the question of ethics doesn't matter much.






                share|improve this answer
























                • $100 (or preferably £100) would have made a lot of difference to me as a grad student. I agree with your $10 assessment.

                  – thosphor
                  12 hours ago














                9












                9








                9







                So the deal is that if you drop everything else you are working on to do a review in a week, you earn $10?



                I think you need to reconsider that business model, or at least, make the gain worth the disruption. $100 might work better than $10 for "impoverished" grad students, but it's still only chicken feed for a professional.



                If somebody offered to pay me $10 to review something, I would put in the amount of effort that $10 was worth. That's probably about 5 minutes of my time - long enough to flick through the pages, and write a couple of sentences saying "awesome" or "garbage". That counts as "a review", yes?



                The above intentionally avoids the question of whether the whole idea is ethical from an academic point of view, but if it won't work as a business model, the question of ethics doesn't matter much.






                share|improve this answer













                So the deal is that if you drop everything else you are working on to do a review in a week, you earn $10?



                I think you need to reconsider that business model, or at least, make the gain worth the disruption. $100 might work better than $10 for "impoverished" grad students, but it's still only chicken feed for a professional.



                If somebody offered to pay me $10 to review something, I would put in the amount of effort that $10 was worth. That's probably about 5 minutes of my time - long enough to flick through the pages, and write a couple of sentences saying "awesome" or "garbage". That counts as "a review", yes?



                The above intentionally avoids the question of whether the whole idea is ethical from an academic point of view, but if it won't work as a business model, the question of ethics doesn't matter much.







                share|improve this answer












                share|improve this answer



                share|improve this answer










                answered 15 hours ago









                alephzeroalephzero

                2,519914




                2,519914













                • $100 (or preferably £100) would have made a lot of difference to me as a grad student. I agree with your $10 assessment.

                  – thosphor
                  12 hours ago



















                • $100 (or preferably £100) would have made a lot of difference to me as a grad student. I agree with your $10 assessment.

                  – thosphor
                  12 hours ago

















                $100 (or preferably £100) would have made a lot of difference to me as a grad student. I agree with your $10 assessment.

                – thosphor
                12 hours ago





                $100 (or preferably £100) would have made a lot of difference to me as a grad student. I agree with your $10 assessment.

                – thosphor
                12 hours ago











                2














                It isn't exactly an academic journal, but Scientific American is a high-quality publication in which advertising is a large part of their business model. But, the way they make things work is by being a reasonably popular publication. Without the popularity, the advertising wouldn't generate enough revenue (why would advertisers pay for ads unlikely to be seen by many?). Furthermore, they wouldn't keep the readership that they have unless they maintain a consistent high quality in what they publish -- where quality isn't just measured in terms of accuracy but also depends on writing quality and anticipated reader interest. They couldn't function if they relied on poorly-paid graduate students rather than professional editors to decide on what gets published. Your desired properties of being quickly-reviewed and advertiser-supported pull in opposite directions.






                share|improve this answer




























                  2














                  It isn't exactly an academic journal, but Scientific American is a high-quality publication in which advertising is a large part of their business model. But, the way they make things work is by being a reasonably popular publication. Without the popularity, the advertising wouldn't generate enough revenue (why would advertisers pay for ads unlikely to be seen by many?). Furthermore, they wouldn't keep the readership that they have unless they maintain a consistent high quality in what they publish -- where quality isn't just measured in terms of accuracy but also depends on writing quality and anticipated reader interest. They couldn't function if they relied on poorly-paid graduate students rather than professional editors to decide on what gets published. Your desired properties of being quickly-reviewed and advertiser-supported pull in opposite directions.






                  share|improve this answer


























                    2












                    2








                    2







                    It isn't exactly an academic journal, but Scientific American is a high-quality publication in which advertising is a large part of their business model. But, the way they make things work is by being a reasonably popular publication. Without the popularity, the advertising wouldn't generate enough revenue (why would advertisers pay for ads unlikely to be seen by many?). Furthermore, they wouldn't keep the readership that they have unless they maintain a consistent high quality in what they publish -- where quality isn't just measured in terms of accuracy but also depends on writing quality and anticipated reader interest. They couldn't function if they relied on poorly-paid graduate students rather than professional editors to decide on what gets published. Your desired properties of being quickly-reviewed and advertiser-supported pull in opposite directions.






                    share|improve this answer













                    It isn't exactly an academic journal, but Scientific American is a high-quality publication in which advertising is a large part of their business model. But, the way they make things work is by being a reasonably popular publication. Without the popularity, the advertising wouldn't generate enough revenue (why would advertisers pay for ads unlikely to be seen by many?). Furthermore, they wouldn't keep the readership that they have unless they maintain a consistent high quality in what they publish -- where quality isn't just measured in terms of accuracy but also depends on writing quality and anticipated reader interest. They couldn't function if they relied on poorly-paid graduate students rather than professional editors to decide on what gets published. Your desired properties of being quickly-reviewed and advertiser-supported pull in opposite directions.







                    share|improve this answer












                    share|improve this answer



                    share|improve this answer










                    answered 9 hours ago









                    John ColemanJohn Coleman

                    1,893515




                    1,893515























                        1














                        As others have stated, your approach is a bit naive, but I don't think it's unreal. Just improbable. If you are going for a new concept do it properly. 10$ is effectively zero. Consider paying hundreds per review.



                        Also consider paying real fees to authors. Almost every periodical except academic ones pay their authors. Newspapers do, tabloids do, comic journals do...



                        Should the access be free? Preferrably, but I don't think it's mandatory. People pay for Scientific American and The Economist. Why wouldn't they pay for a good academic journal? Of course, not the current fees but prices comparable to normal journals like the ones I mentioned.



                        Now how do you pull it off? Who's gonna pay for it?



                        For an inspiring example in another area, see https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/ - here's a bunch of companies who are paying so every website could have an SSL certificate for free. I think it is possible to convince companies like Google or Facebook to sponsor academia, especially if you are going to improve a field that they care about, say - AI research.



                        I don't think you can survive on ads. For most fields there's no one audience. Like what are you going to sell to AI geeks or statisticians? Few of them are interested in hats, some in chess and others like cooking. It's not like you are going to sell them calculators and I doubt it's even worth advertising professional products like SPSS to them...






                        share|improve this answer




























                          1














                          As others have stated, your approach is a bit naive, but I don't think it's unreal. Just improbable. If you are going for a new concept do it properly. 10$ is effectively zero. Consider paying hundreds per review.



                          Also consider paying real fees to authors. Almost every periodical except academic ones pay their authors. Newspapers do, tabloids do, comic journals do...



                          Should the access be free? Preferrably, but I don't think it's mandatory. People pay for Scientific American and The Economist. Why wouldn't they pay for a good academic journal? Of course, not the current fees but prices comparable to normal journals like the ones I mentioned.



                          Now how do you pull it off? Who's gonna pay for it?



                          For an inspiring example in another area, see https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/ - here's a bunch of companies who are paying so every website could have an SSL certificate for free. I think it is possible to convince companies like Google or Facebook to sponsor academia, especially if you are going to improve a field that they care about, say - AI research.



                          I don't think you can survive on ads. For most fields there's no one audience. Like what are you going to sell to AI geeks or statisticians? Few of them are interested in hats, some in chess and others like cooking. It's not like you are going to sell them calculators and I doubt it's even worth advertising professional products like SPSS to them...






                          share|improve this answer


























                            1












                            1








                            1







                            As others have stated, your approach is a bit naive, but I don't think it's unreal. Just improbable. If you are going for a new concept do it properly. 10$ is effectively zero. Consider paying hundreds per review.



                            Also consider paying real fees to authors. Almost every periodical except academic ones pay their authors. Newspapers do, tabloids do, comic journals do...



                            Should the access be free? Preferrably, but I don't think it's mandatory. People pay for Scientific American and The Economist. Why wouldn't they pay for a good academic journal? Of course, not the current fees but prices comparable to normal journals like the ones I mentioned.



                            Now how do you pull it off? Who's gonna pay for it?



                            For an inspiring example in another area, see https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/ - here's a bunch of companies who are paying so every website could have an SSL certificate for free. I think it is possible to convince companies like Google or Facebook to sponsor academia, especially if you are going to improve a field that they care about, say - AI research.



                            I don't think you can survive on ads. For most fields there's no one audience. Like what are you going to sell to AI geeks or statisticians? Few of them are interested in hats, some in chess and others like cooking. It's not like you are going to sell them calculators and I doubt it's even worth advertising professional products like SPSS to them...






                            share|improve this answer













                            As others have stated, your approach is a bit naive, but I don't think it's unreal. Just improbable. If you are going for a new concept do it properly. 10$ is effectively zero. Consider paying hundreds per review.



                            Also consider paying real fees to authors. Almost every periodical except academic ones pay their authors. Newspapers do, tabloids do, comic journals do...



                            Should the access be free? Preferrably, but I don't think it's mandatory. People pay for Scientific American and The Economist. Why wouldn't they pay for a good academic journal? Of course, not the current fees but prices comparable to normal journals like the ones I mentioned.



                            Now how do you pull it off? Who's gonna pay for it?



                            For an inspiring example in another area, see https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/ - here's a bunch of companies who are paying so every website could have an SSL certificate for free. I think it is possible to convince companies like Google or Facebook to sponsor academia, especially if you are going to improve a field that they care about, say - AI research.



                            I don't think you can survive on ads. For most fields there's no one audience. Like what are you going to sell to AI geeks or statisticians? Few of them are interested in hats, some in chess and others like cooking. It's not like you are going to sell them calculators and I doubt it's even worth advertising professional products like SPSS to them...







                            share|improve this answer












                            share|improve this answer



                            share|improve this answer










                            answered 9 hours ago









                            DžurisDžuris

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