Re: Future of the "subscription model?"

[Rick Anderson <rick.anderson@utah.edu>]

>If Rick spent that much time analyzing markets of books 
>published>by university presses, then he should realize that the 
>range in sales goes from about 200 copies up to over a million.

Let's refer back to my original sentence: "These presses don't 
typically sell very many copies of the books they publish." By no 
means was I asserting that never in the history of publishing has 
a scholarly book sold well. Sandy's examples are notable 
exceptions to the general rule for UP sales.

Now, that said: the online environment and the growth of 
print-on-demand technologies make it possible for UP publications 
to sell more in the future than they have in the past, because 
they no longer need to go out of print. One of the great 
frustrations for libraries and booksellers when I was in that 
business was the need to snap up copies immediately, because 
scholarly books were printed in such short runs and so rarely 
went into second printings. POD means (or should eventually mean) 
the end of the print run.

---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections
J. Willard Marriott Library
University of Utah
rick.anderson@utah.edu