1. Publish or perish. This has been the adagium I would like to believe until not long ago. Until I learned that publishing your work in academic journal could actually cost you a fortune. Maybe because I have few times made money by publishing popular article in newspaper, I wrongly do not anticipate that when it comes to scientific article for academic journal, there is an awful lot of page charge, correction fee, plus additional charge if you want some color plates involved! Sent a manuscript to a high profile, specialized journal about a month ago. Got a response from the Editor. The attached documents there asked us the authors to sign an agreement to pay charges of about more than $2,000. That's only for page charge (it's $60/page). Then there was $1 per correction on the page proof, and finally $1,000 if a colored paper (for graphs, etc) requested. [Long sigh here]...
This is discouraging. How can you publish if you don't have enough fund? How can you not perish? An overoptimistic view, however, would be: publish once (is alright, but only) in Number One Journal! Then enjoy the fame afterward... [Sigh, once again]... Should the adagium really be expanded to: Publish or Perish or Pay Up?