posted
The next step of a publication production project finished today! Along the way, it wasn't pretty. A dozen rounds of piecemeal galley proofs, over two hundred e-mail messages about one issue or another, some misunderstandings, some upsets, some egregious lapses, many illustrations that were mislabeled, all required retouching, many caption glitches, other content glitches, and much hair pulling. That's publishing.
The closer the layout got to complete, the happier the contributors were. The last publication project for the same publisher was praised by all concerned for its stunning production values. This one is no less stunning, in my opinion. Contributors are now satisfied, and the higher-ups that know what they want done but not how to do it are ecstatic. C'est moi.
So here I am, finishing up the sixth book publishing project of my career, one left on my plate, others pending in the wings, and I've been asked to speak at a conference about state-of-the-art publishing. Adversarial!? That's publishing. My asked-for focus is about a publishing niche few outside of academia are familiar with; that is, the publish or perish paradigm that demands professors publish in their fields or stall on their career ladders. Many academic presses publish those works. A few that aren't university situated also publish scholarly works, but they are a last resort that costs producers more and demands more effort.
What is not generally known is the process known as subvention. A subvention pays a publisher for publication, usually from funds raised by the professor-author, and can be high four figures. Also usually, the project is delivered to the publisher ready to print, already laid out and designed. Just drop it into a Linotype press memory and let the leaves fly into a collator, into a binder, paste on a cover, and place into a box.
Problematic, to say the least. The speech will propose a new method that initially costs far less in terms of production expenses, but no savings on design and layout unless the author-professor knows the technologies and how to work with publishing software. Theoretically, Word and WordPerfect will do the job. But their layout features are clumsy compared to industry stalwarts CorelDraw, Quark, and InDesign, all of which I'm proficient with, expert in two.
The issues and objections to the proposal I anticipate are based on perceptions of vanity publishing. Blind peer review is required in academia. Screening for importance to a field, new knowledge, objectivity, rigorous new research, ample supporting citations, and consensus agreement are parts of peer review. Not to mention appeal, content and organization, expression, and mechnical style.
None of that is an issue if a department and/or university solicits review from outside professional/academic association blind refereed peer review, which is what traditional academia publishers do anyway.
Other considerations include product distribution, whether print and/or digital, Distribution Rights Management concerns, licensing fees for copyrighted content, and statutory requirements like taxes, copyright registration, and ISBN, ISSN, or EAN assignment, and secondary discourse critical review.
None of those are a bar to academic publishing. Inexpensive distribution packages list titles in in-print catalogs like Ingram's and Bowker's. Ingram's distributes to libraries and university bookstores as well as online and brick and mortar book retailers.
DRM concerns on one hand are about preserving revenue streams. On the other hand, scholarly works shouldn't be barred from text search, select, copy, and paste to make citation simpler to do and might obviate DRM protections. Leaving DRM protections off makes for comparatively easy critical review and not too coincidentally fosters promotion and publicity. Licensing fees may or may not be assessed and may or may not be costly, but copyrighted content must be at least licensed for use in for-sale reproduction. Taxes on revenue might not amount to much, not if expenses outweigh revenues by at least one dollar.
A single ISBN assignment costs as little as $75 or free if using a Lulu or CreateSpace assignment. ISSN and EAN assignments are free from outside agencies. Copyright registration is required for each edition, electronic or print. Same with ISBN. ISSN and EAN are serial publication numbers for ongoing use.
Academia technology and culture changes are a coming. These are the basics of my presentation.
posted
Because this is not a world I'm familiar with, can you tell me if peer review is currently something that scholars charge for? I think I always assumed no, but I have no real reason for thinking this.
I am curious what the primary objection will be. I'd guess it will have to do with the stigma of self publishing first and DRM concerns second.
Posts: 20 | Registered: May 2012
| IP: Logged |
posted
Peer review is not typically paid, nor is refeering. Refereeing is part of the peer review process. A referee collects submissions, screens them for basic organization and content and mechanical style areas, and disseminates them to subject-matter specialists for review. The referee-reviewer system is the double-blind method. Since many academic disciplines are specialized, peer reviewers, referees, and authors are frequently familiar with one another, making blind peer review a little questionable.
On the other hand, blind peer reviewing returns on a quid pro quo basis. Though that may seem a little disingenous, the reality is subtle, courteous contention and pecking order rivalry are more common than unquestioning agreement and ready consent. Both personality cult conflicts and those conflicts assuring objectivity result in reputable outcomes.
The primary objection to academic self-publishing is vanity publishing that has not undergone rigorous screening and subject-matter review, not per se self-publishing. There, the primary concern is whether the product contributes to scholarhsip or is just the producer's vanity bringing shame to a subject-matter community.
DRM concerns are more an individual's concern about revenue, promotion, and distribution than a concern that a discourse community or academic community might object. Nonprofit motives are de rigueur in academia, since, theoretically, the projected outcome should be scholarship, not for-profit outcomes. Professional and artistic jealousy and envy also play a part in academic culture disapproving of profit motives.
In fact, most, if not all, university English departments perpetuate a contentious schism between readers and writers, literature and creative writing programs respectively. However, technical writing programs garner the bulk of funding and students in English departments. Since technical writing's vocational outcome is more or less objectively quantifiable and vocationally oriented outside of academia, where universities, departments, programs, and professors want students to go after graduation. Then graduated students don't compete with the hidebound, entrenched status quo.
posted
Okay, my experience with academic publishing comes from the hard sciences, and I may not understand how it works in the English Departments, but I'd like to give my perspective on this because I feel that what is being said (intentionally or not) might paint the wrong picture for those who are not in the academia world. I fear it might undermine the significance of academia publishing. (This is just my interpretation, so I may be misreading this. I mean no disrespect).
I'm not sure that it is fair to compare academic publishing to vanity or self-publishing. It is completely different world with different rules. Sure the academic author does pay, but the journals don't just publish anyone who is willing to pay. They are very selective.
From my experience in the sciences, an academic paper goes through extensive review and scrutiny before it even has a chance to be published. It is in the scientific journal's best interest to make sure that what they publish is of high quality otherwise scientists won't buy or read their journals. They do not just throw in any paper just to earn a buck from the author, but select carefully from a lot of submitted papers to find the best. The professor-author does pay maybe several hundred dollars or more to be published (which comes from their research funds not out of pocket), but that is just how the industry has been established and the best way for a scientist to get his/her research out to the scientific community. It is completely different from what we at hatrack are trying to do, and not comparable at all to vanity presses.
And FYI, for those who are interested, there is a hierarchy in scientific journals. The journals at the top are very prestigious and tend to have the most ground breaking articles (examples: Science, Nature, and Chemical & Engineering News) and then there are second tier journals and third tier journals. Their unofficial ranking is determined by the quality and significance of the articles they publish. Every journal wants to rise in ranks not fall, so they won't publish just anything to make a buck. In the long run, they'd lose since their journal would become obsolete.
posted
I think you misunderstood, MAP, what I'm saying. Conventional academic publishing regardless of department follows the outline you lay out. Except for creative writing departments and programs, which may have more latitude regarding publishing options, so long as the content merits recognition. I'm consulting with one creative writing professor who self-publishes prose. I've worked with others.
My point is technological innovations have opened up other avenues for academic publishing. Comparable to self-publishing only in that arranging publication falls solely on a writer, though in academia not without rigorous screening and peer review. Whether that would in part be refereed by a professor's discipline community, department, or university depends on the discipline, department, and university's policies and discretion already anyway.
Though journal publication, like prose publication, is an appreciable majority of academic publication, book publication, like prose publication, is nonetheless a signficant fraction. Book publication subventions are appreciably more costly than journal subventions. Subvention funds may come from department or university sponsoring; however, they may also come from outside sources, like subject-matter associations, government grants and fellowships, and including author out-of-pocket expenditures for career development enhancements.
I'm currently consulting with several professors on book publication. Some physical sciences, some social sciences, some English professors, some creative writing professors. One social science professor is facing a subvention in four figures plus other developmental costs and no in-house support for the project, nor currently any support from government or association sponsors.
posted
What I'd like to know is if academic publication is supposed to be non-profit, why do college textbooks and other academic publications cost so darn much?
Is it a racket, as some assert, and if it is, who is the racketeer? (With the possibilities of print on demand being able to lower costs, it can't be because of the low print runs, right?)
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
The textbooks that cost me dearly were freshman and sophomore survey texts on history, geography, math, science, and such that had many figures and tables and color plates. The rest of my textbooks cost about what the average is for prose books that have few or no tables and figures.
Professors also gripe about the cost of textbooks that can run a hundred or more dollars. They have to buy them too to teach from them, though their editions have answer keys and teaching point summaries that they are required to use. Several of mine cost more than two hundred dollars. Production values were generally poor: ink that ran, bindings that came apart, flimsy cover boards, wrinkled and blurred pages, mass produced junk that had print runs into the hundreds of thousands that could have been printed and bound by newspaper presses.
School boards, statewide university boards, nationwide committees, accreditation boards, etc., require the texts for required basic studies courses that freshmen and sophomores take. The texts are revised every year or semester to keep current, presumably, but that's where the racket runs awry. The content is everchanging and perpetuates the racket.
Publishers and distributors make the lion's share of profits, though contributors take their cut as well. A baisc history text can have hundreds of text, illustration, table, and graph contributors, each paid handsomely, and not necessarily professors, though PhDs.
All that adds up to expensive textbooks that more often than not perpetuate the racket. Publishers of such textbooks are in the process of converting to digital publication at no appreciable cost or price savings due in large part to the page count, content, layout, and design production costs.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
It still sticks in my craw that one Victorian literature text that cost me $75 had appalling typesetting (Heart of Darkness was unreadable because of how shoehorned it was into 43 pages) and every single piece in it was available on Gutenberg.
"But you have to get this edition because everyone has to be on the same page. Also there are the introductions," (inane, and never discussed) "and the footnotes." (1. Poseidon was the Greek god of the ocean. No way!) I left it on the nearest "take a book, leave a book" rack halfway through the semester.
Most of the major publishers are publicly traded companies, I wouldn't call that non-profit. The racket comes from a captive audience and stockholm syndrome professors.
The talk of self-publishing makes me think about the concept of the funnel and how that can be applied to this. It's hard because the audience is usually limited to a specific discipline. I know the point of this kind of publication isn't so much to make money but to keep their jobs, but I don't think that should cheapen the value of the works.
Posts: 1895 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: I think you misunderstood, MAP, what I'm saying. Conventional academic publishing regardless of department follows the outline you lay out. Except for creative writing departments and programs, which may have more latitude regarding publishing options, so long as the content merits recognition. I'm consulting with one creative writing professor who self-publishes prose. I've worked with others.
My point is technological innovations have opened up other avenues for academic publishing. Comparable to self-publishing only in that arranging publication falls solely on a writer, though in academia not without rigorous screening and peer review. Whether that would in part be refereed by a professor's discipline community, department, or university depends on the discipline, department, and university's policies and discretion already anyway.
Though journal publication, like prose publication, is an appreciable majority of academic publication, book publication, like prose publication, is nonetheless a signficant fraction. Book publication subventions are appreciably more costly than journal subventions. Subvention funds may come from department or university sponsoring; however, they may also come from outside sources, like subject-matter associations, government grants and fellowships, and including author out-of-pocket expenditures for career development enhancements.
I'm currently consulting with several professors on book publication. Some physical sciences, some social sciences, some English professors, some creative writing professors. One social science professor is facing a subvention in four figures plus other developmental costs and no in-house support for the project, nor currently any support from government or association sponsors.
Thanks for the clarification. I thought it must be a misunderstanding.
Posts: 1102 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
