David Publishing Company, a Massive Spammer from China

The source of much spam email.

David Publishing Company is among the most annoying scholarly open-access publishers. It incessantly spams pretty much everyone in higher education, medicine, and research.

It specializes in spamming people making presentations at conferences, timing the spam to arrive right after the presentation is completed and inviting the victim of the spam email to convert the presentation into a scholarly article for one of its many journals.

The publisher has been on my list for years. It publishes 50 journals (see list below). It used to give this New York City apartment building as its headquarters address:

240 Nagle Avenue # 15C
New York, NY 10034
USA

Now, the website puts the headquarters here:

1840 Industrial Drive, Suite 160
Libertyville, IL 60048
USA

They’ve also used a City of Industry, California address in the past. David Publishing Company is really based in Jianghan District, Wuhan, Hubei, China.

Their spam emails (example here) typically promise a 2-3 week peer review. The publisher requires that authors both pay an author fee and transfer their copyright to David Publishing Company. It’s an open-access publisher, but for a time in 2012 it flipped its model to the subscription model. Also in 2012 they claimed they were based in El Monte, California.

In the past, I received correspondence from a representative of David Publishing named Kunderi Mahaboob. Now it comes from Shelly Shen.

In fact, they recently sent me this package of print journals. The package was shipped from Wuhan, and it included this cover letter promising a gift of Chinese tea.

These are the print copies of their journals they shipped to me from Wuhan, China.

Most of David Publishing Company’s journals cover fields of study already saturated with subscription and open-access journals, including, for example, Economics World.

Should be “Computers.”

Scholarly publishers need people with expertise in the industry to succeed. Merely wanting to earn money as a scholarly publisher and going through the motions won’t work. David Publishing Company is a bottom-tier publisher, a massive spammer, and a publisher that all researchers should avoid.

Appendix: List of David Publishing journals as of 2015-10-03

1. China-USA Business Review
2. Chinese Business Review
3. Computer Technology and Application
4. Economics World
5. History Research
6. International Relations and Diplomacy
7. Journal of Aerospace Science and Technology
8. Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology A
9. Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology B
10. Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
11. Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture
12. Journal of Communication and Computer [sic]
13. Journal of Control Science and Engineering
14. Journal of Cultural and Religious Studies
15. Journal of Earth Science and Engineering
16. Journal of Electrical Engineering
17. Journal of Energy and Power Engineering
18. Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering A
19. Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering B
20. Journal of Food Science and Engineering
21. Journal of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering
22. Journal of Geological Resource and Engineering
23. Journal of Health Science
24. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
25. Journal of Life Sciences
26. Journal of Literature and Art Studies
27. Journal of Materials Science and Engineering A
28. Journal of Materials Science and Engineering B
29. Journal of Mathematics and System Science
30. Journal of Mechanics Engineering and Automation
31. Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing
32. Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology
33. Journal of Physical Science and Application
34. Journal of Shipping and Ocean Engineering
35. Journal of Sports Science
36. Journal of Statistical Science and Application
37. Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Management
38. Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering
39. Journal of US-China Medical Science
40. Journal of US-China Public Administration
41. Journalism and Mass Communication
42. Management Studies
43. Philosophy Study
44. Psychology Research
45. Sino-US English Teaching
46. Sociology Study
47. US-China Education Review A
48. US-China Education Review B
49. US-China Foreign Language
50. US-China Law Review