Aspects that impact open access (OA) publishing can be institutional, societal, or individual factors. The question of publishing OA can be seen as moving from the “if” to the “how”, which raises several further questions. How do institutional context and official policies impact authors? How do central dimensions of digital society, for example digital literacy and accessibility, affect publication choices? What is the role of personal strategies? This contribution, based on data collected from workshops and a survey aims to address these questions from the perspective of the audience of the interdisciplinary golden access journal jedem.org.