Contract Agreement: Once your proposal has been approved, a contract is prepared to confirm our publishing partnership. This contract will include key details such as a final delivery date for your manuscript, your rate of payment or royalty for the project, and any specifications you need to consider as you prepare the work, such as a target page or word count. Once the contract for your project has been signed by you and countersigned by Open Science, assignment can begin.
Assignment: Having determined suitability, the Managing Director informs the Board of Directors and is responsible for sending the complete, or near-complete, manuscript to at least one recognised experts for review.
Peer Review: Referees are asked to consider the following: (1) overall quality; (2) originality (its contribution to the field); (3) academic standards; and (4) success of synthesis between areas for those submissions purporting to be interdisciplinary. Referees will recommend one of the following options: (1) accept outright for immediate publication; (2) accept subject to minor modification; (3) accept subject to major modification; (4) reject outright.
Revision: Authors will be sent anonymized of referee comments. Authors are responsible for considering the suggestions and, if they agree, ensuring that necessary amendments are carried out.
Reconsideration: Revised manuscripts may be returned to Referees or may be assessed solely by the Managing Director (having reference to the review and recommendations by the referees).
Recommendation: Based on referee reports and her own assessment, the Managing Director will make a recommendation to the Board of Directors, which has final responsibility for each decision on each submission.
Author Proof-reading: Once your submission has been accepted, we ask for a fully proof-read copy of your work, with an index and bibliography. Alternatively at the author's request Open Science will arrange for additional professional proof-reading and copy-editing services if needed.
Open Science Proof-reading: Once you submit your final manuscript and images we will check it for consistency and proof-read it in-house. We will then send you a first set of proofs in Word. This is the last opportunity for authors to make minor changes in the text.
Typesetting: After last corrections have been approved we send the manuscript to our typesetters, check their work and send you final proofs in PDF/ Word format. No changes can be made at this stage in order not to disrupt the page layout.
Publication: We usually publish the title within three months (and no later than 6 months) from receiving approved final proofs from authors.
Marketing and Sales: Our marketing and sales activities in support of your book begin well before publication and a large part of this strategy is focused on maximizing discoverability of your book. We release information about your book to market six months ahead of publication to begin driving interest and pre-orders.