Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Avid Science

Avid Science apparently is located in Hyderabad, although its email and website (3/15/17) list an "international mailing address" in Berlin.* Its journals have the same graphic for the title page, and almost all journal titles are "Prime Research in ... ." No journal has a designated editor-in-chief. Editorial board members receive 50% off Avid's usual fee for publishing online.

One would hope that leaders in the field comprise an editorial board. I started (and stopped) with two members of the editorial board of Prime Research in Oncology (Payal Mittal, UConn Health School of Medicine, and Oorvashi Roy, University of Texas). Both are postdocs.

* See the comment from Debora Weber-Wulff, 14 Jan. 2019.
Email
From: Avid Science [mailto:ebooks.cfbc@avidsciences.org]
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 4:02 AM
Subject: Forensic Science: Call for Book Chapters

Avid Science Publications is pleased to announce the launch of its new open access eBook “Forensic Science"
Theme: Recent Research and Review works in the field of Forensic Science.
Tentative Submission Deadline: May 05, 2017
Indexing: Google Books and Google Play
Mode of Publication: Open Access eBook
Publication Fee: A nominal publication fee of USD 350 is charged per chapter upon acceptance to cover the production and maintenance costs.
Kindly respond to this email within a week, to confirm your participation. We look forward to hear from you.
Regards,
Avid Science
Borsigstr. 9, 10115 Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
3-6-462/4-8, Level 2, Street No 5, Himayat Nagar, Hyderabad 500029, Telangana, India
On 3/15/17, I wrote Avid that "I am very interested in this book. Who is the editor? I would like to discuss the volume with him or her." The next day, I received this reply:
Greetings! ... We will be glad to receive your book chapter for our eBook. ... Unlike traditional eBooks, our eBooks do not have an editor in specific. All the submissions will be reviewed by our internal review team which would check for novelty, scope, presentation of the chapter along with basic editorial checks such as plagiarism, grammar, etc ... We look forward to hear from you. Regards, Jayashree, Avid Science, 3-6-462/4-8, Level 2, Street No 5, Himayat Nagar, Hyderabad 500029, Telangana, India

9 comments:

  1. The price for featuring in one of their book-shaped dumpster fires has dropped to $200, while the themes of the book have become more grandiose... "10 Top Contributions to Psychology"? Really? What kind of a barmpot is sufficiently deluded to purchase that kind of honour?

    They seem to have narrowed their focus and are scouring author lists from open-access journals, in the hope that those authors will be more desperate to publish and less concerned about self-plagiarism or the bad optics of purchasing a CV.
    -------------------------------
    Dear Dr. XXXXXXXXXXXXXX,
    This is Venkata, Book Commissioning Editor at Avid Science. It's a great pleasure to inform you about the launch of our new open access eBook entitled “Top 10 Contributions on Psychology” (1st Edition), scheduled for publication in 2018.
    I came across your publication “XXXXXX” published in XXXXXX during 2013.
    Since the above article was published open access, I would like to discuss the possibility to republish the article in our eBook as a Book Chapter by citing and crediting the original source. The copyright License of the journal permits for it.
    This eBook will be indexed in Google Books and will be assigned with an ISBN. The Article Processing Charges for publishing the article in our eBook would be USD 200.
    Kindly let us know if you will be interested in the above proposal so that I could share further details accordingly.
    Look forward to hearing from you.
    Regards,
    Venkata
    Avid Science
    306, Level 3, Mahavir House,
    Himayathnagar
    Hyderabad 500029,
    Telangana, India
    Avid Science
    Borsigstr. 9, 10115,
    Berlin, Germany.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Got a similar mail. This is clearly a money grab with the least possible effort from their side and no scientific credibility.
    --------------------------------------------

    Dear XXXXXXX,

    This is Priyanka, Book Commissioning Editor at Avid Science. It's a great pleasure to inform you about the launch of our new open access eBook entitled “Top 10 Contributions on Plant Biology" (1st Edition), scheduled for publication in 2018.

    I came across your publication “XXXXXX” published in “XXXXXXX” during 2014.

    Since the above article was published open access, I would like to discuss the possibility to republish the article in our eBook as a Book Chapter by citing and crediting the original source. The copyright License of the article permits for it.

    This eBook will be indexed in Google Books and will be assigned with an ISBN. The Article Processing Charges for publishing the article in our eBook would be USD 200.

    Kindly let us know if you will be interested in the above proposal so that I could share further details accordingly.

    Look forward to hearing from you.

    Regards,

    Priyanka

    Avid Science
    306, Level 3, Mahavir House,
    Himayathnagar
    Hyderabad 500029,
    Telangana, India
    Avid Science
    Borsigstr. 9, 10115,
    Berlin, Germany.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I received this phishing mail today with an attached Word file invoice. The wordfile was infected with a trojan!


    "Customer Invoice
    Avid Science
    Reply |
    Today, 11:53
    Laxxx Rxxxxx
    ...
    Inv_No_C0779.doc135 kB

    Dear,

    This is a notice that an invoice has been generated on September 19, 2018.
    Your payment method is: credit card
    Invoice #C0779
    Amount Due: $769,59 USD
    Due Date: October 22018
    ------------------------------------------------------
    Sub Total: $769,59 USD
    Credit: $0.00 USD
    Total: $769,59 USD
    Array
    ------------------------------------------------------
    Payment will be taken automatically on October 2 2018 from your credit card on record with us.


    Thank you,


    Avid Science
    Office 745-499-9350
    Fax 745-499-9642
    ebooks.sc@avidsciences.org

    This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipients and may contain confidential information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited.
    If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply E-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.

    ReplyDelete
  4. To whomsoever it may concern:

    This is Venkata, Book Commissioning Editor at Avid Science.

    We came across this post when one of the Authors shared it with us today. We agree to the fact that we have contacted few authors for republishing their works in our eBooks. An article copyright of which permits for republication as a book chapter was only requested for publication and our motto was to come up with an eBook which will be a compilation of recent scholarly papers targeting an audience of practicing researchers, academics, Ph.D. scholars and other scientists.

    However, we would like to clarify that the email with the invoice details does not belong to us.

    Few authors have complained this morning stating that, they have received few emails from different mail-addresses, requesting to “Pay due invoice/Fee” on behalf of Avid Science. Few emails also had anonymous links. We request you to not click on the link or reply to the emails, as it could be a phishing or fake mail.

    Below are the two examples of such suspected Emails reported by one author:
    Avid Science [wv@solcon.nl]
    Avid Science [info@surreycopiers.com]

    You may make a note of that, though a Prefix like “Avid Science” is used, their Email Id or Domain do not refer to Avid Science. We recommend you to always check for authenticity of Domain Name in the Email address.

    We request all authors to be cautious before responding to such fake Emails as it could be similar to a scam email where Branded Firm names are used.

    All financial transactions of Avid Science are done either through “PayPal” or “Bank Transfer.” In case of any suspicion when you receive an Email with an invoice, kindly write to us at contact@avidscience.com to check with the authenticity of the Email.

    We hope this will be helpful.

    I request the blog/website owner to post this comment for clarification of the readers or either remove the comment regarding the "invoice" as does not belong to us.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've got the email from Avid Science today, So it's Sravanthi now? What name of the editor will come next? I google the company on google map, there's a lot of sensor on the building. If you click in Top 10 in xxx, don't be surprised if there's just one or two chapters there, not ten. I might pay 1$ for donation if they put the picture of Sravanthi or any editors they claimed on the website, just wanna see the face of people who make a living by playing with other's feelings.

    Dear Dr. xxxxxx,

    This is Sravanthi, Book Commissioning Editor at Avid Science. It's a great pleasure to inform you about the launch of our new open access eBook entitled “Top 5 Contributions in xxx” scheduled for publication in 2018.

    I came across your publication “xxx” Published in “xxx” during xxx.

    Since the above article was published open access, I would like to discuss the possibility to republish the article in our eBook as a Book Chapter by citing and crediting the original source. The copyright License of the journal permits for it.This eBook will be indexed in Google Books and will be assigned with an ISBN and DOI.

    The Article Processing Charges for publishing the article in our eBook would be USD 200.

    Kindly let us know if you will be interested in the above proposal so that I could share further details accordingly.

    Look forward to hearing from you.

    Regards,

    Sravanthi

    Avid Science

    306, Level 3, Mahavir House,

    Himayathnagar

    Hyderabad 500029,

    Telangana, India

    Avid Science

    Borsigstr 9, 10115,

    Berlin, Germany.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh, the Borsigstr. 9 is a popular place in Berlin :)
    https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article131635341/Das-grosse-Geschaeft-mit-Protz-Adressen-in-Berlin.html

    Check out the name plate with about 100 companies that "reside" here, although there are only about 15 apartments in the building. This is a company that sells the service of a German postal address. It opens the mail, scans it in, and sends it on to whomever is paying the fee for the mailbox.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Now the title changed to “Top 5 Contributions on Sustainable Development"

    From: Books [mailto:info@avid-science.com]
    Sent: Monday, August 19, 2019 6:38 AM
    To: xxxx xxx
    Subject: Reg: Your Recent Publication

    Dear Dr. xxxx,

    This is Venkata, Book Commissioning Editor at Avid Science. It's a great pleasure to inform you about the launch of our new open access eBook entitled “Top 5 Contributions on Sustainable Development" scheduled for publication in 2019.

    I came across your publication “xxxxxx” published in “xxxx” during 2019.

    Since the above article was published open access, I would like to discuss the possibility to republish the article in our eBook as a Book Chapter by citing and crediting the original source. The copyright License of the article permits for it.

    This eBook will be indexed in Google Books and will be assigned with an ISBN. The Article Processing Charges for publishing the article in our eBook would be USD 200.

    Kindly let us know if you will be interested in the above proposal so that I could share further details accordingly.

    Look forward to hearing from you.

    Regards,
    Venkata
    Avid Science
    306, Level 3, Mahavir House,
    Himayathnagar
    Hyderabad 500029,
    Telangana, India

    Avid Science
    Borsigstr. 9, 10115,
    Berlin, Germany.

    CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The contents of this email message and any attachments are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and/or privileged information and may be legally protected from disclosure.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm getting approximately 10 emails a day currently from Avid Science - each time I block, they still manage to get through with another address and no email address on their website. Just pure nuisance stuff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello,

      This is Venkata from Avid Science. Thank you for posting your concern here. I would like to get to your notice that we do not send 10 Emails a day. This could be a Junk/Spam email sent by Spammers in the name of Avid Science.

      One such example is posted above in this blog. The subject could be like "Customer Invoice, Pay due Invoice, etc." Though a Prefix like “Avid Science” is used, their Email Id or Domain do not refer to Avid Science. I guess you mentioned the same in your comment.

      We recommend you to always check for authenticity of Domain Name in the Email address. We request all authors to be cautious before responding to such fake Emails as it could be similar to a scam email where different Brand/Firm names are used.

      All financial transactions of Avid Science are done either through “PayPal” or “Bank Transfer.” In case of any suspicion when you receive an email with an invoice, kindly write to us at contact@avidscience.com to check with the authenticity of the Email.

      We hope this will be helpful.

      Delete