Some journals are really authentic and meeting all requirements needed for a good international journal, and if they are demanding little amount then there is no harm in paying that because it could be a publication fee. But if the journal is demanding a huge amount than there is a big question mark on authenticity and original work.

Only thing you have to do is to choose the most appropriate journal for your work where you can publish it either for free or at a reasonable cost as you mentioned. There is such a cut throat competition in this field that authenticity of any journal can only be related to its publisher. With new journals cropping up every week, how can you say that a particular journal is authentic or not. All of them will have authentic looking attributes like ISSN no. etc. and much more. I feel when your work is ready for publication, just search for the best journal that suits your work. If it is demanding a high publication fee and if you are ready to pay, then it is OK. Otherwise switch to the second one in your list and so on.

If you want to have an insight into these topic regarding publication fee for publishing research, you can follow the link below and see the discussion. I believe you will get your answer there too.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_far_do_you_think_that_asking_a_fee_for_publishing_a_research_paper_is_justifiable

Gud Luck and regards

Very true Alok. One should start with the journal which is most often cited in our own bibliography. It is generally the most relevant one and if it does not work out than the next and so on. If they ask for payment, so be it. Publication is far more important.

Huge scientific journals are usually businessess (see e.g. IF competition). Aforementioned policy is shaped partly by market (compare e.g. markets of medical and philosophical scientific journals), and partly by editors and reviewers (scientist). Maximization of the income in not the only aim of it. It makes reasonable efforts of all sceintists to increase accessibility of papers.

This is an interesting question because of the word "authenticity". Usually journals published by open access publishers want you, the author(s) or the authors' institution on behalf of the author(s), to pay for publishing which is called "article processing charge" (APC). Here authenticity should not be the question as many reputed well established as well as prestigious journals also ask for the APC. Even if you want to publish your research in Nature as an "open access" article you will have to pay, which is huge in fact. You can't question the authenticity of Nature!!

Well, you may ask why you need to pay for your work. You should, when you are publishing as open access. In general there are 2 business models in journal publication, a) subscription based and b) open access (open access comes with 2, usually, options, gold open access is one of them which is most popular nowadays). Subscription based journals rely on the fund they raise from the institutions (or persons) subscribe to the journal and as a result the reader need to pay for the article as it is not free of charge. But in the other model (open access), the author(s) pay the money on behalf of the readers and thus the article remains open (no one need to pay as you have already paid).

Journal publication business is a business at the end of the day and not a charity (forget about those which are published by an institution or forum or society). So, to sustain in the market they need to make profit, either from the readers or from the author(s).

Yes, a high APC may be a matter of concern (specially for the researchers coming from resource limited countries), but not the authenticity of the journal. Still there are some publishers who don't go through the proper channel of evaluating the merit of a manuscript, i.e. don't do proper peer review, just publish an article taking the APC. This is a scientific misconduct and thus unethical practice for sure. So, I think you should not question about the authenticity of a journal, rather you may ask whether the current trend of APC (as high as 3000 USD) is justifiable and reasonable or not!

Journal publication has become a business in recent times! However, even such journals asking for publication charges may actually be authentic.