Re: Homer Simpson at the NIH

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

David,

If there is less money in the system, the bigger players are 
better positioned to survive; if there is more money in the 
system, the bigger players are better positioned to survive. 
The issue is not the size of the market; it is the maturity of 
the market.  Publishing is close to a no-growth business.  In 
no-growth markets, consolidation is a likely, if not inevitable, 
strategy.

The only reason that academic journals are published by such a 
huge number of publishers--unlike, say, college texts (6 players 
in the U.S. have 85% of the market)--is that the not-for-profit 
status of many of the players makes them resistant to some 
aspects of the marketplace.  That is neither good nor bad; it is 
what it is.  If all journals publishers were publicly traded and 
thus subject to Wall Street's stern review, consolidation would 
come quickly; we would be down to three publishers in 5 years.

The large players (most of whom are commercial) have learned to 
work with the restrictions on growth.  They develop budget 
allocation strategies (the Big Deal) and solicit professional 
society publications.  Their growth (NOT the market's growth, 
which is nill) is slowed down by the NFPs, but it is not stopped.

Incidentally, I can't help remarking that this long thread has as 
its subject line "Homer Simpson at the NIH."

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 11:21 AM
Subject: RE: Homer Simpson at the NIH

> I'm happy to use publishers other than the American Physical 
> Society as examples.  The trouble is that few publishers 
> (commercial or non-commercial) have been as open as the APS in 
> giving their revenue per article.  However, if you would rather 
> then let's use the example of Optics Express which I understand 
> makes a surplus (and is open access, incidentally) on a 
> publication charge of $1,200 or so (dependent on the length of 
> the paper).
>
> Joe contends that if there is less money in the system it is 
> the big players who are best placed to survive.  I'm just 
> wondering if that necessarily true as some (not all, some) 
> smaller publishers (both commercial and non-commercial) appear 
> to operate on less revenue per paper.
>
> David C Prosser PhD
> Director
> SPARC Europe
> E-mail:  david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk