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I have been invited to submit a book chapter. The invitation email says:

Due to your involvement in the field, and the research you published in your paper, 'X', publisher 'Y' invites you to extend your work and offer a more comprehensive overview of your studies. Contribute a chapter to 'Z', an upcoming Open Access book edited by Dr.'W'.

Surprisingly, paper 'X' is completely unrelated to the Book 'Z'. The book is edited by a renowned professor, the publisher is InTechOpen.

What to do in such case? Can I select any of my published papers in journal for this purpose? Will it not create any copyright problems?

Disenchanted Lurker
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RIchard Williams
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2 Answers2

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If they're sending you invitations to contribute to volumes that are completely unrelated to your work, the next step's simple: ignore the email. They're clearly not doing their research and are resorting to mass mailings.

Allure
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Normally, when getting an invitation to submit a book chapter, the expectation is that you submit a novel piece of work, unless stated otherwise.

Submitting a paper already published will not satisfy this requirement. There are two problems with this: 1) you often give the copyright to a publisher after the acceptance of your paper for publication. For a republication, you would need the permission from the publisher then, which is unlikely to be granted. 2) This will look like you are trying to publish the same result twice, which is frowned upon.

DCTLib
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    Actually my area of research is completely different from the topic of the book. I don't know why that invitation came to me. What to do in such case ? – RIchard Williams Oct 21 '19 at 11:29
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    @richard-williams This "invitation" is not real. It's a mass-produced email sent to thousands of people whose addresses were scraped from publications and academic web sites. If you accept it, you will actively harm your career. Ignore it, and send similar emails to your junk email folder. – iayork Oct 21 '19 at 11:49
  • @iayork: The book is edited by a renowned professor, the publisher is Intechopen. – RIchard Williams Oct 21 '19 at 11:52
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    If you want to proceed, email the "renowned professor" (at an email address you find, not the one in the email you received) and ask if they're genuinely associated with it. These emails typically fake the editor names. Even if the "renowned professor" is actually associated with it, all that shows is that senior people can also be fooled by scammers. – iayork Oct 21 '19 at 11:54
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    @RIchardWilliams According to their website, intechopen have almost 107,000 "authors and editors". You are not joining an elite club here. – alephzero Oct 21 '19 at 18:23
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    Since the asker has edited the question to indicate that the publisher is predatory, this answer is now incorrect. – Anonymous Physicist Oct 22 '19 at 00:08
  • @AnonymousPhysicist I would not say incorrect - it's still the answer to the question in the title. It's just not what the asker should actually do in this specific case. – Disenchanted Lurker Oct 22 '19 at 09:36