A friend of mine and I were e-mailing about various offers he had pending for a law review article he’d written, and in passing he mentioned this:
[One of the journals] forbid[s] web publication of their articles, which is an absolute deal-breaker . . . .
I was pleased to hear him say that, and I think more authors should take this view. We want more readers, and these days Web publication is critical to getting more readers. And I think law journals should take the same view, despite some possible (and I suspect quite minor) financial loss they’d get by not offering WESTLAW, LEXIS, and HeinOnline exclusivity.
Fortunately, he reported that the journal ultimately relented, “and sent me an e-mail offering to allow web publication. I’ve found that law reviews tend to offer very extreme form contracts, but are always willing to make reasonable concessions.” That’s quite right (except I’d say “almost always” rather than “always”).
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