The term „predatory publishing” was first used by Jeffrey Beall, an academic who created and maintained a list of potential, possible, or probable predatory journals on his university website.
Academic self-publishing is a major new trend in scientific and academic publishing. Across all genres of book, the number of self-published books has grown rapidly in recent years and now represents over 30% of all e-book sales.
Over the last decade Article Processing Charge (APC) has become the main business model for Open Access journals, especially those with commercial publishers.