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I saw the following in a journal homepage at http://www.pphmj.com/journals/jpanta_author_information.htm

Print Charges: To defray the publication cost, authors are requested to arrange print charges of their accepted papers at the rate of US$ 40 per page from their institutions/research grants, if any.

I don't understand the meaning of if any in the above sentences. I have a paper with no grant. Should I pay any thing?

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    It means "We don't know anything about scholarly publishing and we don't care, just give us your grant money"
    – Cape Code
    Commented Apr 19, 2017 at 12:21
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    $40 per page?!
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Apr 19, 2017 at 15:17
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    $40 per page (or even more) would have been pretty standard in the last century. But nowadays (as noted) unusual.
    – GEdgar
    Commented Apr 19, 2017 at 15:35
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    The first google result for "journal page charges" shows that, as recently as 2011, The Astrophysical Journal (which has a top-10 impact factor for astronomy and astrophysics) charged $110 per page. They've changed to "quantum" charges, but the concept is the same. No reason page charges should be considered indicative of poor practices.
    – Mike
    Commented Apr 19, 2017 at 16:13
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    The Journal of Neuroscience is one of the top journals in my field and the main journal of the Society for Neuroscience, the biggest professional organization in the field. Publication charges are $1260 for members and $1890 for non-members. I'd estimate about 15 pages is fairly typical for a research paper in that journal, so that's about $100 per page.
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Apr 19, 2017 at 16:23

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In my field (political science), a non-open access journal that charges publication fees clearly raises a red flag. But apparently publication fees in other fields are common for subscription-based journals (see comments). It might be just a coincidence then that Pushpa Publishing House is a predatory publisher that appears on "Beall's List".

Don't publish with this journal.

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    Note that although this particular journal may be disreputable, page charges are common in some fields even in the most reputable, well-read journals. Therefore I wouldn't say page charges themselves are indicative of a predatory publisher.
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Apr 19, 2017 at 14:55
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If you are at any institution or if you have any grants, these should be used to pay the print charges.

If you don't have these, it implies you pay the charges out of your own pocket-- if you want a printed version of your paper, that is.

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    "if you want a printed version of your paper, that is" Nothing in the text seems to say that.
    – JiK
    Commented Apr 20, 2017 at 10:26
  • @JiK what does "print charges" refer to then?
    – astronat supports the strike
    Commented Apr 20, 2017 at 10:42
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    @astronat It could be an euphemism for "fee we want from everyone, and we can't just write that" ... ie. even without print version, they get 40 per page
    – deviantfan
    Commented Apr 20, 2017 at 11:02
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    @JarkoDubbeldam: I guess they want to make authors authors think about the money as grant money rather than their own money. People are typically much more willing to spend money when they don’t think of it as their own.
    – PLL
    Commented Apr 20, 2017 at 17:09
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    @PLL We can ask for high amounts, because its not your money but the money you got for doing research. Gotcha. Sounds a lot like everything in science, like lab supplies.
    – JAD
    Commented Apr 21, 2017 at 7:14
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Another way of reading the sentence is:

If you have an institution/research grant, then the page charges of $40 per page can be paid from that - otherwise, you as the author are required to organise payment the page fee from other funding sources.

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  • Even then... other funding sources, but if you have none, I'm guessing they waive entirely.
    – Fred Douglis
    Commented Apr 27, 2017 at 17:40
  • Possibly, but that information is not clear from the original question.
    – user70612
    Commented Apr 27, 2017 at 18:59
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    I conclude it from the terms requested rather than required and the use of "if any". But you're right, it is not certain.
    – Fred Douglis
    Commented Apr 27, 2017 at 19:28
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Actually there is another interpretation that sometimes applies, though I can't say that it does here. For some journals, in some situations, if you don't have institutional or grant funds to pay page charges they are just forgiven and won't accrue to the author(s). I can't say how prevalent this is, but it has occurred (one of my mathematics papers, in fact).

But you should ask the editor what happens if you have no source of funding other than yourself.

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The if any is applicable to their institutions/research grants. So, this sentence basically means: The author has to pay from his/her own pocket if he/she cannot get it funded from his/her institution/research grants.

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