My paper was accepted and published online in a reputed journal who has extra charge per page quoted as Rs.X /per page. I knew that page will exceed and I'll have to pay 5 * X as I can afford it. After that i didn't recieved any intimation from them, now after an year i received a mail that paper is going to be published in print and pls pay 5 * 2X (recently they increased extra charge per page to 2X) I don't know what to do, I'm not capable of paying twice for it. Can someone guide me what to do and what happens if I don't pay for it? My paper has already been cited 5 times in other papers as reference.
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1 Answer
The legal situation (but I am not a lawyer and I am not giving legal advise but only my personal opinion)
When they accepted the paper and you agreed to pay publication charges, that created a contract, where one of your duties is to pay the charges as specified. Unless, the agreement says anything specific to the contrary, they can't just change how much you have to pay unilaterally.
What you should do
Communicate with the journal. Tell them:
- the charge was X when they accepted your paper
- you are willing to pay 5 * X
- you have never agreed to an increase in charges
- you will not pay a higher charge
(I'm assuming all of the above is true.)
Then you wait for their answer and react accordingly. I expect that the journal manager will agree and say that there was a mistake. I find it unlikely that the journal would retract your paper for this.
You might have to hand this over to your administration's legal department if the journal maintains that you have to pay the higher charges. Sometimes it also helps to make a stink on Twitter.
