Writing an academic book chapter?

If you want people to read it, you best make sure the book it's in is open access.

Those are the conclusions of The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) 's Press Editor in Chief Patrick Dunleavy, in an article written last year.

The benefits really stem from two things
🔎 Discoverability
🔓 Accessibility

Here are some examples Dunleavy lists:

🔗 Books and book chapters can have their own DOI (Digital Object Identifier - basically a permanent link to the book or chapter in question)
⏬ Individual chapters and books can be downloaded without any paywall
📢 The publishers tend to publicise both books and chapters, not just the book as a whole
📖 Authors can freely share the final version of their chapter (otherwise, the authors have given copyright to the publisher, so they no longer own the chapter)

Of course, there are many other things to consider when considering writing a chapter or not. For example, in some research fields, book chapters don't count in the same way as peer-reviewed papers. Is open-access an aspect you'll take into consideration?

Curious to know more?

Read Patrick’s original blog post: Open access publishing dramatically improves the visibility and value of chapters in edited books | LSE Press