Re: Wiley-Blackwell 2009 Subscription and Licensing Options

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

I suppose there are some publishers who justify prices based on 
the costs incurred, but I have never met any of them. 
Publishers typically justify prices (if they feel the need to 
justify them) based on the value of the products.  The 
justification is the mechanisms of the marketplace itself. When 
the marketplace believes appropriate value is delivered for the 
price, the product is purchased.  When the market believes the 
value is not up to snuff, there is no purchase.  The publisher 
does not set the prices; the market does.

Joe Esposito

On 10/1/08, FrederickFriend <ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

> Emily,
>
> I am grateful to you for providing this information. I could not
> find the FAQs to which you referred; the page
> http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/librarians/faq.asp came up
> with "Error: the page you have requested cannot be found", and
> the closest I could find to a "Transition" site, viz.
> http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Brand/id-35.html does not have any
> FAQs.
>
> Of course I accept that the cost of producing the content will be
> the same whether the delivery is print or electronic, because you
> will be producing print copies from an electronic base. You
> appear then to be saying that the cost of delivering the content
> is the same whether it is electronic or print. This contradicts a
> view I have heard from a number of distinguished publishers over
> the years, that maintaining a print production line adds between
> 20% and 30% to the cost of a journal. The argument put to me has
> always been that for customers to see the cost benefit from
> cancelling print, the print production line would have to be
> closed down completely, which is an argument I can understand.
> What Wiley-Blackwell appear to be doing now is including part of
> the cost for delivering print (i.e. the cost above the cost of
> producing the content) into the price paid by online only
> customers. This may make some customers think twice about moving
> to e-only.
>
> The justification you put forward for the pricing of the online
> version is that the online version provides added value. I accept
> that the online version does provide features not available in
> the print version, but I am surprised that the cost of providing
> these features is equivalent to the cost of providing a print
> copy. And one of the added benefits included in the online
> version, i.e. perpetual access rights, appears to customers not
> to be an added benefit at all, because it is included
> automatically in the print copy.
>
> Thomas Krichel wrote in response to my earlier post to Liblicense
> that "the issue for a publisher is to maximise profits, not align
> prices to costs". He may well be right. However, when publishers
> justify the prices they charge, they do so on the basis of costs.
> So what I am calling for from publishers is honesty: either be
> open about your costs, or else stop talking about costs and admit
> that all that matters to you is the "bottom-line".
>
> Fred Friend
> JISC Scholarly Communication Consultant
> Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gillingham, Emily - Oxford" <emily.gillingham@wiley.com>
> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 12:48 AM
> Subject: RE: Wiley-Blackwell 2009 Subscription and Licensing Options
>
>> Fred - There is an FAQ about this topic in the Customer
>> Briefing document linked to from our Transition site.  It is
>> our position that we are selling content, not packaging, and
>> therefore the journal price is the same for the print or online
>> format in 2009. The online journal isn't actually cheaper to
>> produce than the print journal.  Typesetting, editing costs etc
>> are the same whether for online or print.  The online delivery
>> of journals offers a great deal of additional value (searching,
>> linking, alerting, etc) not available in print and that
>> requires a publisher to commit to substantial ongoing
>> investment to support and improve. In addition, an online
>> subscription includes access to 12 years of content in many
>> cases, i.e. back to 1997, and includes perpetual access rights.
>>
>> Emily Gillingham
>> Wiley-Blackwell
>> emily.gillingham@wiley.com
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of FrederickFriend
>> Sent: 29 September 2008 22:55
>> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>> Subject: Re: Wiley-Blackwell 2009 Subscription and Licensing Options
>>
>> Can Emily Gillingham please answer one simple question: why is
>> the cost of online only in the per-title option the same as print
>> only? The estimates have never been exact but we have always been
>> told that producing the print copy adds an extra cost for the
>> publisher - hence presumably the justification for charging 110%
>> for online plus print - so logically the cost of online only
>> should be less than the cost of print only.
>>
>> Fred Friend
>> JISC Scholarly Communication Consultant
>> Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL