'History Research' journal scam - warning

From: Leo Enticknap <[email protected]>

Dear All,

About six months ago I received an unsolicited email from a
representative of the David Publishing Company in El Monte, CA, inviting
me to submit a paper I gave at a conference some time previously for a
journal, 'History Research', that they publish.

I was a bit surprised
about this, because from a quick look at their website, they didn't seem
to be doing much related to film or media history at all. Nevertheless,
I thought that there would be nothing to lose by sending it to them, and
so I did.

This morning they came back to me with a reader's report,
which is a complete joke. The peer reviewer sought to criticise my
'grammar and mechanics', but yet his or her report was itself littered
with spelling, grammar and syntax errors (including the comment that my
use of languge 'was not a polish aspect of my paper' - no, especially
given that I wrote it in English!). The email to which it was attached
also included a copyright form in which I was required to sign all
rights over to them, and ... here's the kicker ... the demand that I pay
a publication fee of $50 per page. This was justified as follows: 'I
must explain it to you that because there is no sponsor for our journal
and we have to charge some fees to run our journal. Please understand us
and support us.' Umm ... so what do the $300 subscriptions he charges
for that journal go to pay for?! And how does he explain the fact that
many other reputable journals are run on a purely commerical basis, and
do not charge their authors to publish?

I have published something like
20 chapters and articles since completing my PhD in 1999, and this is
the first time that any publisher has tried to get me to pay them.
Needless to say, no mention was made of the $500 publication charge at
the time I was asked to submit my paper.

So, herewith a heads up: if
you receive a message fromi these people, click delete and move
on.

Leo