I'm wondering if anyone has created an academic authors union to put pressure on the publishers? If authors were to publish under a union, and allow the union to set publisher restrictions, it would give them a great deal of negotiation ability. Self publishing would be one option, but securing better contracts through current publishers would also be an option.
**************************** Greg Sonnenfeld “The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 12:32 AM, Russ Abbott <russ.abb...@gmail.com> wrote: > Yann LeCun has a promising idea. It's similar to yours, just more fleshed > out. > > -- Russ > > > > On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 9:43 PM, Nicholas Thompson > <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: >> >> Thanks, Russ. >> >> >> >> Why, exactly, do we need them anyway. Can’t any list of a hundred experts >> (like FRIAM, for instance) become a peer-review journal with everything >> published to the web? I have wondered about this before. Let’s say we >> announce the FRIAM journal of Complexity Science and Scatology. Now, >> anybody can send us a paper 5 dollars and somebody will read it and assign >> to it a number of stars, lets say between 0 and 5. Now, when the author >> receives the review, he may publish the paper with the assigned number of >> stars, or he may revise the paper. Readers of the “journal” can set number >> of stars as a reading criterion. We could have a second popularity index, >> for people, not on the editorial board, express approval or disapproval for >> an article. >> >> >> >> Some one of you is doing this already, right? Who? Where? How’s it >> working. >> >> >> >> Nick >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On >> Behalf Of Russ Abbott >> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 10:14 PM >> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self publishing >> >> >> >> See this NYT article and sign up here. >> >> >> >> -- Russ Abbott >> _____________________________________________ >> >> Professor, Computer Science >> California State University, Los Angeles >> >> Google voice: 747-999-5105 >> >> Google+: https://plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/ >> >> vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ >> _____________________________________________ >> >> >> >> On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson >> <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: >> >> Hi, everybody, >> >> >> >> I have signed perhaps a dozen Publishers Agreements over my life time and >> each one was more onerous, self-serving, and stupid than the one before. My >> favorite was the publisher who asked me to “hold the Publisher harmless for >> anything that might occur as a consequence of the publishing of the work.” >> I asked a lawyer if this meant I was liable if a printer got his hand caught >> in the press while my book was running and he answered, “Well, probably >> not.” And then he thought for a moment and said, “Oh, they’ld never come >> after you for that!” Early contracts limited my liability to the income from >> royalties, and one publisher actually provided authors’ insurance for a >> modest premium. But no more. >> >> >> >> Well today, I got an author’s contract for a paper I am contributed to an >> academic collection that asked me to warrant that the work had been >> commissioned by the publisher and was “work for hire”. Now, work for hire >> means that one’s surrenders ALL rights to the work including the right to >> claim it as one’s own work. It’s the kind of contract you sign when you >> write jacket copy for a publisher. ( The publisher in this case was Oxford >> University Press, in case any of you are thinking of doing business with >> them.) I am a wishy washy fellow, but somehow I could not sign a document >> that said that my original work was “work for hire.” Couldn’t do it. >> >> >> >> It’s too late for this work. I will have to sign the rights over to my >> [young] collaborator, because she desperately needs the paper for her >> career. But MAN! It got me to thinking. WHAT ABOUT self publishing. With, >> say, Amazon” Does anybody on the list have any experience with Amazon or >> other self publishing services that they would like to share? >> >> >> >> My Dad was a book publisher, and I grew up with conversations around the >> dinner table about “developing authors” and trying to find new authors, and >> how a few books might have to be published before a new author caught on. >> They published Churchill’s Memoires and Mein Kampf (!) and the Peterson >> Field Guides, among many others. Now, it seems, publishers do very little, >> and academic publishers, in particular, do nothing but scavenge off the >> fetid bits coughed up the publish or perish system. Is is it time to dump >> them? I am sure this is a party I am late to. Where do I get invited. >> >> >> >> Nick >> >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology >> >> Clark University >> >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> http://www.cusf.org >> >> >> >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> >> > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
