RE: Digital publishing and university presses

["Sally Morris \(Morris Associates\)" <sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>]

Apologies if, in coming late to this discussion, some or all of the
following points have already been made!

To equate the per-page cost of printing out on a local printer with the
per-page subscription price of a journal is erroneous for a number of
reasons:

1)	Most of us are not lucky enough to have double-sided, colour
printers (or binding equipment).  Thus we use twice as much paper as
necessary (more, if the journal page is smaller than A4).  What's more, we
end up with a pile of loose pages - no great problem for a single article,
but hopeless for a whole journal issue.  The publisher's production cost
includes binding.

2)	Per-page manufacturing costs on local printers do not decrease with
quantity;  printers' costs do, slightly, since there is a set-up element in
the cost

3)	Publishers' manufacturing costs also include typesetting - a major
cost element for a short-run journal.  Nevertheless, all production costs
amount to a relatively small proportion of total journal costs (I remember
estimates of around 20% from my days working for a large publisher).

4)	Publishers' overall costs also, of course, include the costs of
editing - both the support (financial, technical and staff) to external
editors, and the cost of technical and/or copy-editing.  Then there's
marketing, sales, subscription administration and so forth - not to mention
the costs associated with any online version.  And then the publisher needs
to make a profit on top, to arrive at the price.  Thus it is pretty
meaningless, surely, to divide the subscription price by the number of pages
and then compare this with the cost per page of simply printing out on one's
local printer.

To see all this explained very much more cogently than I can, see Don King's
article 'The cost of journal publishing:  a literature review and
commentary' in Learned Publishing 20: 2
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1087/174148507X183551 - open access)


Sally


Sally Morris
Partner, Morris Associates - Publishing Consultancy

South House, The Street
Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK

Tel: +44(0)1903 871286
Fax: +44(0)8701 202806
Email: sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Esposito
Sent: 18 April 2009 00:37
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Digital publishing and university presses

What everybody knows is that the cost to the publisher is less 
than the cost to the consumer.  The publisher pays the cost of 
manufacturing (Sandy's figure), the consumer pays the cost of the 
publication (Kevin Smith's figure).

Joe Esposito