RE: Costs of open access publishing - the Wellcome Trust

["D Anderson" <dh-anderson@corhealth.com>]

David Goodman commented that "Editing will add to the cost, but why the
readers should pay for the authors' felt need to have quality certified by
referees, or for the proof-reading that the authors should have done, is
also something I do not understand. This the authors' responsibility."

The comment betrays a profound lack of understanding of the publishing
process.

It takes a team of professionals and editorial staffers to produce a
finished editorial product. The submission of an article by an author is
just the start of a long process involving staff with a wide range of
skills and expertise.

Even if an author directly hired people to perform roles such as editing
and proofreading, a publisher with any integrity certainly is not going to
take it on faith that the work was done correctly. And even if the author
has the editorial expertise in these areas needed to oversee and evaluate
the editorial work done by others (which few do), it is impossible for an
author to be objective.

It takes a lot of time, effort, and money to identify, recruit, evaluate,
train, motivate, and manage a qualified publishing staff. In addition,
what seems to laypeople as a simple process of coordinating the editorial
flow among team members actually takes a substantial amount of time and
expertise.

Regarding comments earlier in this thread that publishers have needlessly
complicated the process of publishing, thereby pushing up costs, I can
attest that the profit motive is a potent motivator for commercial
publishers to relentlessly and continuously pursue greater efficiencies.
Publishing managers I know spend a good portion of their time thinking
about ways in which they can streamline the publishing process.

Dean H. Anderson