Price Defects Research (it's a Wiley!)

[Bernd-Christoph Kaemper <bernd-christoph.kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de>]

Dear colleagues,

as pointed out previously, dyscalculia seems to be a common 
defect with publishers, especially in pricing for the library 
market.

A fine example is the Wiley-Liss title Birth Defects Research, an 
official publication of the Teratology Society.

It is published in three parts,
Part A - 12 issues
Part B - 6 issues
Part C - 4 issues

each issue at approx. 90 p.

Society members receive a print and electronic subscription to 
either Part A or Part B as part of membership dues. Part C is 
free to Society members, and comes bundled with Part A or Part B 
for institutional subscribers.

US domestic list price (2010) for institutional subscribers is 
USD 4832 for part A+C and USD 2251 for part B+C. A P+E 
subscription comes at a 10% surcharge, as usual.

Part A+C is approximately double the price of Part B+C (i.e. 
institutional pricing ignores the contribution of the "free" part 
C).

Add both together, and you get 4832 + 2251 = 7083 USD.

You would expect that the full package price (Parts A,B+C) 
carried a discount at least for subscriptions including print, as 
the publisher saves to ship the issues of part C twice. But, 
surprise! if you order the full package, it will cost you

7190 USD, i.e.,

107 USD more(!) than if you order separately (or 119 USD more for 
P+E). Get less - pay more?

Or perhaps you should read it the other way around: Take more, 
pay less!

So our advice would be to order the two parts separately.

With the saved money, you could then sponsor a regular or 
associate membership to the Teratology Society at your 
institution which comes at $126. Or you could buy 20 Give-A-Tree 
Cards from Arbor Day Foundation in order to help offset the 
additional paper consumption needed.

Member's pricing is quite different. Society members pay $65 for 
either A+B or A+C (as part of their membership dues) and an extra 
$50, i.e. $115 for A+B+C. The $20 savings on a combined 
subscription (20/130) exactly reflects the proportional savings 
of 4 issues to ship compared to two separate subscriptions 
(4/26).

It's as usual. Personal subscribers cannot be cheated upon, as 
the price elasticity of demand for them is higher than for the 
"must have" institutional subscribers.

However, choose the right options, and make everyone happy: a 
separate subscription to parts A and B plus a sponsored personal 
subscription to parts A+B comes at the same price as a combined 
subscription, brings the society a new member and increases the 
journal's print circulation by one for parts A and B and by two 
for part C. You'll receive 48 issues instead of 22 for a combined 
subscription, at the same price. Isn't that a deal?

Best regards,
Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Stuttgart University Library