Reply to Fytton Rowland

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

>Specifically, scholarly journal publsihing is different from the rest of
>publishing in being author-driven,

JE:  Hmmm.  I wouldn't have thought so.  I suppose it's a matter of
balance and perspective, but I would have said that only trade (that is,
consumer books sold in bookstores) publishing is preponderately
author-driven. Academic journals are title- (that is, journal-) driven.  
There are author-driven publications in all publishing segments, of
course, but the energy moves around a bit from segment to segment.  Trade
is focused on authors, K-12 is a sales game, etc.

Now, the response to this posting is bound to be that the way journals
sopped up the energy is by having the best authors, and that is *partly*
true.  But a journal is purchased generally in advance of anyone knowing
what particular authors will appear in it.  In other words, the publishers
have cleverly migrated the value from the authors (who are hard to
control) to the publication itself, which can be owned outright.

As a rule (and there are exceptions), publishers make the least money in
author-driven segments and the most in segments where other things drive
purchasing (sales and marketing, aggregation, etc.).

Joe Esposito