I'm an English professor and I get email from predatory journals all the time. They often have weird, incredibly expansive titles (The International Journal of

I'm an English professor and I get email from predatory journals all the time. They often have weird, incredibly expansive titles (The International Journal of Business, Science, and Human Culture -- something like that). I don't really understand how they manage to stay in business, though. We all know that there's a difference between Cell Biology and this kind of fly-by-night nonsense. In some disciplines, journals are quite explicitly ranked by "quality," acceptance rate, etc. Certainly, my colleagues would know immediately if I was publishing in some venue like this; it just wouldn't "count." Perhaps this scam is intended for another group? Some quack scientist (say) wants to create a giant verifiable CV of their "publications?" Or someone needs some kind of scholarly credentials as a humanist or social scientist, but is unaffiliated? The whole thing is a bit mystifying to me. EDIT: I don't mean to imply, by the way, that "unaffiliated" scholars are somehow forced to do this. I know quite a few independent scholars who do excellent work and publish in high-quality, peer-reviewed journals.