Q: What is the procedure to withdraw an accepted article from a journal?
I submitted an article to a peer reviewed journal and it got accepted. But they are asking to pay around 15,000 rupees for publication. But I am unable to pay the fees so I wanted to withdraw the paper. I wanted to know the procedure for paper withdrawal.
Withdrawal after acceptance of the manuscript is not a good publication practice since the editor and reviewers have put in so much of their valuable time and effort on your paper. You have not mentioned whether you were aware of the publication charges at the time of submission. Ideally, publication fees would be mentioned on the journal website. If it was mentioned, then you should either not have submitted to this journal or should have requested for a fee waiver at the time of submission. However, if the journal website has no mention of the charges and you were informed about it after acceptance, then you can definitely write to the editor and tell them that you would not be able to pay and would like to withdraw your manuscript.
To withdraw your paper, you need to write an email to the Editor informing him of your decision to withdraw and requesting a confirmation of the withdrawal. Do not submit your manuscript to another journal before you receive a confirmation of withdrawal from the Editor, as this can be considered as a duplicate or simultaneous submission. Additionally, once you receive the confirmation email, save a copy of it as proof of the completion of the withdrawal procedure.
Related reading:
- Can I withdraw an accepted paper?
- How to write a withdrawal letter to the journal
- What can I do if the editor does not confirm my withdrawal request?