Books: Standard contracts for publishing a book with Penn Press allow authors to reuse their own content for non-commercial purposes in various ways. Be sure to check the details of your contract and the questions below before planning to reuse your Penn Press material. Still have questions? Contact your acquisitions editor or send a query to pressrts@pobox.upenn.edu.
Journals: Authors may post the Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM) on their personal websites, on noncommercial discipline-specific servers of preprints or postprints, and within noncommercial digital repositories of nonprofit institutions with which they are currently affiliated. The AAM is post-peer review but pre-copyediting and pre-typesetting.
Journal authors may post a link to the published version on Project MUSE or JSTOR when it is available along with source and copyright information. Authors should post a link to an article rather than post a PDF; article views are an important factor in library purchasing decisions and by encouraging usage on the journal’s hosting platform, you demonstrate the journal’s value.
For journal authors subject to Plan S or other mandates, this policy is compliant with the “repository route” for Plan S and Green Open Access (as of 10/31/23). Visit our Open Access Information for Journals page for more information.
With the exception of Dissent magazine, which requires a 12-month embargo, Penn Press journal authors may post the AAM and final publication link at any time. Journal authors should always check the details of the agreement to publish that they signed. For other questions, please reach out to the Editor or Managing Editor of the journal or send a query to pressrts@pobox.upenn.edu.
Frequently Asked Questions
The guidelines below apply to content already published with Penn Press. If you have questions about using your content prior to publication, please reach out to your acquisitions editor or to the editor of the journal that accepted your work for publication.
May I republish my journal article or book chapter?
Yes. You have the non-exclusive right to republish your work as part of any book that you are the sole author of, without paying any fee to Penn Press. We request that you
- credit the original publication with Penn Press
- use the wording of the copyright notice as it appears in the original Penn Press publication
- notify Penn Press by emailing pressrts@pobox.upenn.edu.
If there is a request to use a chapter or an article in a multi-authored edited collection, permission from Penn Press is required and a fee may be requested.
May I use my journal article or book chapter in a class that I teach?
Yes. You can duplicate or distribute copies of a chapter or essay for teaching or other student use, as part of a course pack or individually. You do not need to seek permission or pay any fee to Penn Press. This policy covers your own teaching; if you have colleagues who want to use your work for teaching, they should request permission via Copyright Clearance Center.
May I post a copy of my journal article or book chapter in an institutional repository?
Yes. There is no need to seek permission to post work in your institutional repository. For journal articles, please include a copy of the Author’s Accepted Manuscript with a link to the final published version.
May I post a copy of my journal article or book chapter on the internet?
Books: Please consult your acquisitions editor before posting your work to the internet. While trusted, non-commercial, discipline-specific sites can be helpful in drawing attention to newly published work, the terms of use for many websites claim rights that belong to the author or to Penn Press; by posting to these sites you may be giving up control of important rights.
Journals: please see the guidelines listed in the first section. Authors should not post published PDFs of their work on sites such as academia.edu and ResearchGate.