What are the fees when submitting to a paper to a conference as an independent researcher?

Question

I am very inexperienced in this process and could only find generic information.

I would like to submit a paper to a particular conference, and I am not sure if there are fees tied to the submission. If so, would the fees still be necessary even if the paper is rejected?

In particular, I am talking about EMNLP 2023. There seems to be no submission site linked on their website, that is why I suspect that I need to register and buy conference tickets somewhere. Note that I have visited EMNLP 2022 and paid for the membership fees.

Answer 1

In general, in my experience, you may need to pay:

• A society membership fee. Conferences organised by a professional society may require you to join the society before you can submit. An annual membership may cost $100-200 (though there may be discounts available if you are not employed in the field).
• An paper submission fee. Usually modest (<$100). Not refunded if the paper is rejected.
• Conference registration fee. Often significant ($500), but again look to see if you are eligible for discounted rates. Typically you do not need to register until after you hear whether your abstract is accepted - so you only pay this if you want to attend the conference.
• Travel, accommodation, food. If you do attend the meeting, there are obviously associated costs. These can be substantial, especially if the conference is large enough to consume a significant fraction of the available hotel rooms in a city.

Answer 2

This isn't my field but in my experience, the best thing to do is closely watch the website. It appears that they released their call for papers recently. I would assume that all information on submissions would be contained there. It is likely that the submission site just hasn't opened. At a glance, it doesn't seem like you can register yet either.

In your shoes, I would just keep an eye on the website and wait for the submission/registration pages to pop up. Any fees you may have to pay will be obvious when you go to submit. If you need that info ahead of time, they will probably be close to last year's website prices.

...would the fees still be necessary even if the paper is rejected?

I don't see a deadline yet, but usually there is enough time to see if your paper is accepted before registering. You can look at last year's deadlines. Conference dates usually don't vary too much year to year. If you register before you receive a decision, then you're locked into whatever cancelation policy they offer. There should not be a significant separate submission fee.

Answer 3

Conferences are unlikely to change their procedures and prices drastically. You can look at past conference websites to get some idea, but you should look at more than just one as on occasion there are special circumstances. It seems that you have to pay for an annual membership and a conference fee. In the past, virtual attendance was much cheaper, which would be typical as there are no hospitality costs associated with virtual attendants.