Preprint Policy
ASM Journals will consider for publication manuscripts that have been posted in a recognized preprint archive, providing that upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication the author is still able to grant ASM copyright or agree to the terms of an Open Access license and pay the associated fee. It is the responsibility of the author to inform the journal at the time of submission if and where the manuscript has been previously posted. If the manuscript is accepted for publication in an ASM journal, the author is required to ensure that the preprint is updated with a citation to the final published article that includes the DOI along with a link.
UPDATE 22 May 2018: Authors may now deposit their manuscripts to bioRxiv directly from ASM Journals submission system. To avoid confusion we encourage authors to make a few considerations before submitting a preprint.