RE: Digital publishing and university presses

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

You're right, Kevin, my mistake. But the books I'm talking about 
are ones that are most likely used in classrooms or bought by 
individuals, and these tend to be in paperback priced around $20 
to $25. So the per page cost is in the range of 7 to 10 cents per 
page.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press


>I think we need to be careful about what we claim that "everyone
>knows."  For a three hundred page book to cost just a few cents a
>page would  require a retail price around $10 - $15.  It has been
>many years since  academic books cost so little.  A quick check
>of five titles selected  randomly from the web site of Penn State
>University Press yielded an  average per page cost of .23 -- far
>more than the expense of local  printing.  There may well be good
>reasons for this, but we should base the  discussion on a
>realistic view of prices.
>
>Kevin L. Smith, J.D.
>Scholarly Communications Officer
>Perkins Library, Duke University
>PO Box 90193
>Durham, NC  27708
>919-668-4451
>kevin.l.smith@duke.edu
>http://library.duke.edu/blogs/scholcomm/
>
>
>Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu> wrote:
>
>>  Everyone in publishing knows how highly inefficient it is to use
>>  local printers to produce hard copy. The per page cost to the
>>  consumer for most academic books ranges from under a penny to a
>>  few cents, whereas using a standard desktop printer probably
>>  costs twice that amount.  The shift to having people print out on
>>  their own, or library, printers adds significant costs to the
>>  entire process -- which, of course, are rarely tallied when one
> > hears about the supposed lower costs of publishing online.