Re: Reply to Fytton Rowland

["Fytton Rowland" <J.F.Rowland@lboro.ac.uk>]

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

I think Joe has misunderstood what I mean by that statement (which is not
just my view - it is a commonly held view of scholarly journal
publishing).

Most types of publication appear because the publisher believes someone
wants to read them - that is, the publisher is convinced that there is a
*reader* market out there.  In those cases, it is reasonable to publish
what the market wants, and to charge readers (or their surrogates,
libraries) what the market will bear.  Market economics work, and the
author gets paid - a lot if lots of copies are sold, not much if few do.  
If no copies are sold, that author won't get published again.

Scholarly journal articles, on the other hand, are published because
authors want to publish.  A publisher will launch a new title if the case
is made that here is an *author* community out there that is not well
served by current journals.  Every scholarly publisher knows that it is
authors that drive a journal, not readers, and they concerntrate their
efforts on attracting and retaining the best authors. But the authors are
out of the financial loop - they neither get paid nor do they pay (in the
general case, though some titles levy page charges).  The bills are paid
by the subscribers - mostly libraries, but with a non-negligible
proportion of individuals.  Until recently, when they started to form
consortia, the buyers had no real power in the market.  Which is why I say
that the scholarly journals market doesn't work in the way that free
markets are supposed to.

Fytton Rowland.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@worldnet.att.net>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 2:45 PM
Subject: Reply to Fytton Rowland

> 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