Unfair publishing practices have affected even the field of monograph publication. A typical example is the so-called author mill or academic author mill. This term refers to publishers’ practices where the business model consists of producing a large number of titles in very small editions – the very opposite of well-established publishing houses which focus on a limited number of good-quality authors and publish their works in thousands of copies. The target group of these publishers are usually postdoctoral researchers whom such publishers actively try to persuade to publish their doctoral theses with them.

Recognizing bogus publishers is more difficult compared to identification of untrustworthy journals, because publishers of books do not commonly provide detailed information on their websites regarding the description of the review process, editorial board, etc. Therefore, one should pay attention to various details and, above all, consult one’s colleagues for what experiences they might have had with the publisher (e.g. whether there was a review process, what care was devoted to final language editing, etc.).