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Panurge · 09-06-2009, 01:37 PM

[On the contrary, the majority of costs of publishing a title apply equally to paper and digital -- i.e. the aforementioned author's advance, editorial costs, marketing costs etc. The paper-specific portion is allegedly around 12% of the cost of a title, so a $25 hardcover less 12% is only $22.]

Those of us involved in publishing and editing recognise that this statement is more or less true. In the case of academic presses, however, some of the editorial work is provided for free, thanks to the tenure system, which encourages professors to take on such tasks for little or no compensation. In addition, a number of other expenses are institutionally subsidised because a press adds to the prestige of the university.
In the last three decades, a few of them have taken on some of the market (by publishing novels, for example) that used to belong exclusively to the trade presses. Yet LSU Press have recently reported serious financial difficulties (and they are not alone among the academic publishers). It occurred to me over a decade ago that academic presses would benefit from the digital revolution because printing costs and distribution represent a higher percentage of their production expenses. Hardbacks, by the way, used to be published first, and when that run had paid back the initial production costs (or at least had a sufficient impact on them), the paperback edition was released. The hardback edition was for a small number of collectors and, above all, for libraries. When the library market was saturated, the paperback version was offered to the general public. It was libraries that subsidised the bulk of that initial run in many cases, and this was especially true for academic publishing, though not much less so for trade sales.
For a number of years now, the University of California Press have been offering titles from their out-of-print backlist online for free as part of their eScholarship Editions. MobileRead members and visitors might find some of these of interest, and the willingness of U of C Press to offer them in this form is certainly very enlightened. But in the main I find it short-sighted on the part of publishers not to exploit the possibilities available from their backlists, now that no title need ever be unavailable or "out-of -print". Recently, Houghton-Mifflin announced that they were no longer accepting manuscripts, that they had all they needed for the time being, thank you. One of the expenses incurred by publishers has to do with reading through and sending out submissions to at least three specialist readers (typically) for evaluation. I think that the traditional publishing model is so endangered by the rapidly developing digital environment that it is not going to be viable for much longer, yet those in the business don't seem to be trying to develop a replacement for it.

09-06-2009, 01:37 PM	#55
Panurge Enthusiast Posts: 34 Karma: 336 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Texas Device: Sony Reader	printing costs [On the contrary, the majority of costs of publishing a title apply equally to paper and digital -- i.e. the aforementioned author's advance, editorial costs, marketing costs etc. The paper-specific portion is allegedly around 12% of the cost of a title, so a $25 hardcover less 12% is only $22.] Those of us involved in publishing and editing recognise that this statement is more or less true. In the case of academic presses, however, some of the editorial work is provided for free, thanks to the tenure system, which encourages professors to take on such tasks for little or no compensation. In addition, a number of other expenses are institutionally subsidised because a press adds to the prestige of the university. In the last three decades, a few of them have taken on some of the market (by publishing novels, for example) that used to belong exclusively to the trade presses. Yet LSU Press have recently reported serious financial difficulties (and they are not alone among the academic publishers). It occurred to me over a decade ago that academic presses would benefit from the digital revolution because printing costs and distribution represent a higher percentage of their production expenses. Hardbacks, by the way, used to be published first, and when that run had paid back the initial production costs (or at least had a sufficient impact on them), the paperback edition was released. The hardback edition was for a small number of collectors and, above all, for libraries. When the library market was saturated, the paperback version was offered to the general public. It was libraries that subsidised the bulk of that initial run in many cases, and this was especially true for academic publishing, though not much less so for trade sales. For a number of years now, the University of California Press have been offering titles from their out-of-print backlist online for free as part of their eScholarship Editions. MobileRead members and visitors might find some of these of interest, and the willingness of U of C Press to offer them in this form is certainly very enlightened. But in the main I find it short-sighted on the part of publishers not to exploit the possibilities available from their backlists, now that no title need ever be unavailable or "out-of -print". Recently, Houghton-Mifflin announced that they were no longer accepting manuscripts, that they had all they needed for the time being, thank you. One of the expenses incurred by publishers has to do with reading through and sending out submissions to at least three specialist readers (typically) for evaluation. I think that the traditional publishing model is so endangered by the rapidly developing digital environment that it is not going to be viable for much longer, yet those in the business don't seem to be trying to develop a replacement for it.