Publsihers' view/reply to David Prosser

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@worldnet.att.net>]

>We have not (as far as I am aware) seen any publishers give us
>their vision of the future based on subscription access - is it really
>business as usual?

JE:  I consult to publishers and would say that (among publishers) though
there are areas of consensus, the future is generally pretty muddy.  The
consenus areas concern the naivete about the costs of publication on the
part of many Open Access advocates.  Publishers believe (and I agree with
them) that OA will cost more, not less, and that many OA advocates confuse
production (a trivial cost nowadays, even in hardcopy) with creating a
market, which is what publishing does.  And the notion that research
publications don't have to have a market made for them goes into the naive
category.  Publishers (including me) may be wrong about this, but on these
points I think there is consensus.  If I am wrong about the consensus, I
would like to know.  (I know that many librarians disagree on these
points, but publishers?)

Where muddiness comes in is the anxiety that overreaching on the part of
some publishers has screwed up the market for everyone.  As one
(prominent) publisher put it to me, "If the librarians start firing a gun
at Reed Elsevier, how do I know that I won't be hit?"  Another publisher
(very senior guy, with a Reed competitor):  "Reed has ruined it for all of
us."  I find this line of reasoning to be intriguing in that it assumes
that perceived price-gouging (among other mostly economic complaints) is
the cause of all the outcry.  I don't share this view; I think there are
many issues besides.  

But will it be, as David Prosser asks, "business as usual" in the
subscription-access arena?  The majority of publishers I have spoken to
seem to believe that the current system will continue, provided that
publishers have the most important properties (best editors, best
authors). I don't agree, but there you are.  I call this perspective "the
editorial fallacy."  It is precisely what has made trade book publishing
such an economic mess--because the real job, creating a market, was handed
over to Barnes & Noble.

My own view (borrowing the vocabulary of the tech business, which is
thoughtfully explained in Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma)
is that the Internet for publishers is not a sustaining technology but a
disruptive technology.  It will disrupt current subscription practices,
peer review, and authorial attribution.  And probably much more besides.

Everyone seems to want the Internet to behave, but it won't.  Everyone
wants the Internet to change *just one thing* about the pre-Internet
world, that one thing that a particular individual doesn't like, such as
increasing journal prices.  But the Internet changes everything.

Joe Esposito