Open access: What is it and why is it worth it?

Open access: What is it?

Open Access means open and free access to scientific publications for all interested parties worldwide. In order to ensure flexible use, open access titles are electronic or online publications that can also appear in printed form like at GRIN.

The best-known definition comes from the so-called Budapest Declaration of 2002, a conference of the Budapest Open Access Initiative with the aim to make research results freely accessible to the public.

By “open access” to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.

Declaration of Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002

This is how the free open access publication at GRIN works:

Sign up and
upload your text
Select a
royalty option
We create your
ebook and book
for free
Distribution
Your royalty

Register and upload text

First, sign up to GRIN. Afterwards, you can add your text directly to your account. In order to do that, simply click "select file" and upload your Word or PDF file.

Choose a royalty option

From the 3 fee options at GRIN, simply choose the open access publication and share your knowledge with the world for free.

We create your e-book and book for free

Our editorial team creates an e-book and a book from the file you uploaded. E-book and book will have their own ISBN. Your publication receives its own cover and we publish your text in our online shop, where it can be viewed for free.

Worldwide sales

The special feature of GRIN: in addition to the e-book, which is available for free, we create a print version of your text. This is marketed through a worldwide sales network of over 300 online shops. Your book is also available at local bookstores.

Receive a high author's royalty

With the book, you profit from every sale. GRIN pays an author's fee of up to 20% on book sales.

Vorheriges Nächstes

Why open access is the right choice for you:

You offer your text for free, thus sharing your knowledge easily, without barriers, and independent of financial resources and research locations.
Uploading your text only takes 5 minutes. We create a finished e-book and book from your text file, each with its own ISBN, and publish your text in our online shop, where it can be viewed for free. This process takes about 2 weeks, so that your research results can be retrieved soon after your upload.
Research data that is openly accessible can be reviewed and verified by more people, which in turn increases the reputation of your text and the likelihood that it will be widely shared. It also contributes to greater transparency in science.
You contribute to the acceleration of international scientific cooperation by offering your text as open access. Global free availability also helps people in other countries gain access to relevant scientific information.
Google and other search engines get full access to the text of open access publications, which means that your text is crawled faster and better, making it easier to find.
Scientific publications that are offered free of charge are cited more frequently on average, and thus, gain higher visibility.
At GRIN, you still earn money with your open access publication, as we create a printed version of your text as well, and market it worldwide.
GRIN offers over 20 years of publishing experience and equips your title with an ISBN for your e-book and print book so that we can easily market the print version.