FAQ for authors and editors
Our editorial teams are on hand to answer any questions you may have about the publishing process. However, here are the most frequently asked questions and their time-saving answers, including your questions about royalties and author contract terms and conditions.
The most important information pages about our publishing house are online and you can access them via the footer navigation of our website. You will find information about how to publish your book or journal article with De Gruyter and about our services in abstracting and indexing, as well as our open access programme.
Authors will get an automatic email when their journal article or book chapter in an edited work is published on our website. We’ll need you to provide us with your email address during the publication process so that you can benefit from this service.
De Gruyter authors pay nothing for publication in subscription-based journals. Alternatively you can choose to publish your article Open Access . In this case, Article Processing Charges (APCs) apply. You retain the copyright for your article and can freely distribute your content to the academic world.
Please use our contact form to send your proposal. This will get forwarded to an editor and we will be in touch. Alternatively, our editors listed on the contact pages will be glad to answer any questions you have about submissions.
Authors will get an automatic email when their journal article or book chapter in an edited work is published on our website. We’ll need you to provide us with your email address during the publication process so that you can benefit from this service.
The function to recommend a title to a librarian with one click that was available on our old platform has been discontinued because of very low usage. For now, please send your librarian an email with a link to the page of the title you’d like to recommend.
Our user experience designers are constantly talking to researchers and authors about what they need and want to achieve and we are designing tools and features to serve those needs. We are updating the website with new, exciting improvements on an ongoing basis, so look out for new author-facing functions to make your life easier. We’ll keep you posted!
Please visit our subject page to find more information about our programme in that area. If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to contact our editors. Subject pages are available for most subject areas.
There are two ways to find your publication.
- Use the search box to type in the title of your work. We are constantly improving and updating the search function and algorithm based on user data and feedback.
- The other way is to go through the ‘My publications’ page. Log in to your account in the upper right-hand corner, then click on 'Login' -> ‘My publications’.
Your publications will be listed there.
To get access to the PDF, please register on the website with the same email address you used for your communication with us. If you already have an account, please log in with that email address and password. Your email address is connected to the journal articles for which you are the corresponding author or the chapters in an edited work you have authored. Once logged in, you will find the links to your works under "My Publications" in the Login Menu in the top right corner.
If you are unable to register or log in to your account or you don’t have access to the content you have authored, please get in touch with our customer service team.
Please make sure that you have registered and are logged in with your corresponding email address which is case sensitive. If you still have problems accessing your eBook, chapter or journal article, please contact our customer service team.
To download the cover of the book:
- Visit the product page on degruyter.com
- Right-click on the cover and choose Save image as.
If access to a complete eBook has been set up for you, you will receive a notification by email. Please simply follow the instructions given in that email. Log in to your account in the upper right-hand corner of degruyter.com with the same email address the notification has been sent to (an account has been created for that email address), then click on ‘My publications’. Your publications will be listed there. If you do not know your password or if you want to set a new one, please choose 'Forgot your password?' on the login page.
De Gruyter has launched a new web shop. It allows researchers everywhere to purchase both print and digital versions of our titles directly on our website degruyter.com.
As a De Gruyter author, you are eligible for an author discount of 30% on all De Gruyter books.
You can now buy titles at this discounted rate directly on our website by using your discount code.
Here’s how to redeem your discount code on degruyter.com:
On the product page for the title that you would like to purchase, click on Buy and make sure to pick the format of your choice (Hardcover, Paperback, PDF, or EPUB).
In the shopping cart that appears, click on Add coupon and insert your coupon code. The discount will be applied to your purchase price.
Log in to your De Gruyter account or register a new account and log in to continue to checkout.
Our web shop accepts the payment options Paypal, Visa and Mastercard.
If you have any problems or questions while applying your discount in the web shop, please contact our customer service team.
If you have ordered through the web shop and have a question about your order, please contact [email protected].
Royalties for authors and editors
Each royalty recipient for a title receives from the publisher a statement of sales royalties, which usually consist of a percentage of the net proceeds. The net proceeds are defined as the list price, or for online use the user fee, minus any statutory tax included in this price and any discounts. The royalty statement encompasses each revenue stream from all sales channels, e.g. eBook packages, consortium sales, and aggregators. Royalties are not generated for inspection copies, deposit copies, or free copies.
Copies are subject to royalty only if they have been distributed against revenue (not inspection, deposit, or free copies). Some contracts stipulate a threshold, such as payment from the 250th copy sold. This can result in copies being sold but not subject to royalty.
All package and consortia revenues are divided amongst the individual titles which make up the package. This means that the revenues for a single title can be well below the retail price of a book, as libraries and institutions receive discounts for package deals.
The sales fees for the respective previous year are transferred during the second quarter of the following year. Due to the high volume of payments the transfer is done in several stages, meaning that all royalties should be transferred by June 30 of the following year. The eight-digit number on your royalty statement is used as the payment reference.
The number of returned copies and their revenues are subtracted from the number of copies sold, which can result in a negative number of copies and/or a negative sum.
Any credit notes for eBook packages are shown as negative sums on the royalty statement. This can happen when an eBook was part of a yearly package but must be removed due to delayed publication. Every transaction amount for a title is included in the royalty statement.
Discounts are negotiated individually with trade customers. Titles which have been sold at an author discount or included in packages or consortium deals are also included in the royalty calculation. The consolidated sum of these sales is shown on the royalty statement. Unfortunately, an individual breakdown of all sales positions is not feasible from an administrative standpoint.
In order to reach the largest possible audience with our titles, we have agreements with so-called aggregators. Aggregators are service providers that offer digital content from several publishers to customers on a needs-driven basis, for purchase as individual documents, entire titles, or as a subscription. This usage is often on a granular level and can be chapter- or even page-based. The revenues are assigned to the ISBNs of the individual titles, which can result in very small sums. Every transaction amount for a title is included in the royalty statement, even cent amounts.
As of 2016, sums of less than € 100 will be paid out within SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area). Unfortunately, the fees for transferring small amounts outside SEPA are very high, making such transfers economically unfeasible. Sums under € 100 will be credited to your account and collected until the total amount reaches € 100. Unfortunately, it is not possible to use this amount as credit for ordering books.
This is an outdated classification which has not yet been corrected for all royalty recipients.
The royalty sum will be paid out by wire transfer, provided you have submitted your bank account information. We do not remit payment by check.
Should you see a number in parentheses behind the sales figures as of December 31 (31.12.), this refers collectively to all product types for that title (print, eBook, paperback if applicable, new editions if applicable). This is not the case for every statement; you do not need to worry if you do not see any numbers in parentheses.
You will receive a share of any license fees that our Rights & Licenses Department has earned for your title. This includes licensed use (for example in university course packs) but also translations or requests to reprint. Even if your author contract does not include sales royalties, you are still entitled to license fees and will receive a statement of these fees.
If you are not a resident of Germany, you are liable for payment of withholding tax, which will be withheld directly by the foreign tax authorities.
The double taxation agreement regulates the amount of these taxes. You should apply for an exemption if you exceed a total annual limit of € 5,000. Without a certificate of exemption, we will be forced to deduct the statutory taxes.
