Directory of Open Access Books
The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) provides a searchable index to peer-reviewed monographs and edited volumes published under an Open Access business model, with links to the full texts of the publications at the publisher’s website or repository.
Open Access Scholarly Book Publishers & Collections
Canadian Options
Athabasca University Press was the first university in Canada to create an open access scholarly press. Access to all AU Press publications is free over the Internet.
Other Options
Open Humanities Press (OHP) is an international open access publishing collective whose mission is to make leading works of contemporary critical thought freely available worldwide. All publications are peer-reviewed.
Ubiquity Press is a fully open access publisher. They publish both individual and series books, all fully peer reviewed, and also support other university presses with the transition to e-publishing.
Open Book Publishers is a non profit organization that publishes books in hardback, paperback, pdf and ebook editions, but they also include a free online edition that can be read via their website, downloaded, reused or embedded anywhere.
OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initiative to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
MIT Press has been a leader in open access book publishing since 1995. It supports a variety of funding models for OA books.
An Initiative to Watch:
Open Access Monograph Publishing Initiative
From the March 16, 2017 Press Release:
"The Association of American Universities (AAU), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and Association of American University Presses (AAUP) are implementing a new initiative to advance the wide dissemination of scholarship by humanities and humanistic social sciences faculty members by publishing free, open access, digital editions of peer-reviewed and professionally edited monographs."
Knowledge Unlatched
A collaborate initiative enabling open access books, the Knowledge Unlatched model depends on many libraries from around the world sharing the payment of a single Title Fee to a publisher, in return for a book being made available on a Creative Commons licence via OAPEN and HathiTrust as a fully downloadable PDF.
Help Turn a Traditionally-Published Book into A Free E-Book (Legally!)
From the Unglue.it "About" page:
At Unglue.it, you can pledge toward creating ebooks that will be legally free, worldwide. These books have already been traditionally published, but they're stuck: legal restrictions keep you from being able to enjoy and share them.
Unglue.it gets them unstuck. Authors and publishers decide what amount lets them freely share their books with the world while still making a living. We raise that fee here through crowdfunding: people like you chipping in. When campaigns succeed, the rights holders get paid, and they issue a free electronic edition under a Creative Commons license.