Re: journal and publication costs, corrected figures

["Marc Brodsky" <brodsky@aip.org>]

Music CDs come in more or less standard sizes and therefore pricing per
unit is discernible, not so for journals without counting articles, pages
or other unit measures. Some publishers do internal unit measures and one
can seem that by noting similar thickness for most volumes. Others do not
and publish as soon as material is processed and ready. Yes there are
other factors as well, but one should not ignore quantity.  Marc Brodsky

>>> espositoj@att.net 01/17/03 07:30PM >>>
If it were true that journals were indeed priced by the article, there
might be something to this analysis, but journals are not priced that way,
any more than music CDs are priced by the song.  Nor are they priced as a
strict function of cost.  They are (mostly) priced as a function of
several factors, including costs, risk, invested capital, and market
opportunity.  The biggest expense is in finding customers--call this
marketing--which is very difficult in a world that is awash in published
research.

Joe Esposito