It isn't right to comment without reading the article but I'll do it anyway. I don't have time to read it.
Part of the problem is in library budgets as distinct from the budgets of the presses. Libraries were -- but less so now -- a big market for the Uni presses. So the presses were pricing to extract from the libraries as much as possible. When the library budgets shrunk, sales shrunk, so each book had to bring in more. Hence the outrageous price increases. Authors know that their books won't sell at $65 or $124 oir higher. But they want the label of publishing with a respected press. They pin their hopes on a year later, when the paper back comes out. A few hundred sales in the first year, then, hopefully, thousands. But the next step down is to publish the first edition in paper back at the outrageous price. I bought a book, paperback, for about $65. It might have had a huge audience at $15 but probably very few will go for $65. A good book, sadly. Gene On Jun 26, 2014, at 5:36 AM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > > So here’s a thesis. If there truly is a crisis in scholarly publishing, > it has arisen from this fundamental first cause: the end of the era in > which institutions sponsoring presses saw the publishing of scholarship > as something near to the heart of their core mission, and deserving to > be supported on those terms. Result: What was never intended to be a > system left to the vicissitudes of the market has become exactly that. > Scholarly books have become high-priced, prestige-driven luxury goods > not by accident, but by forgetfulness. > > Symptoms of this shift abound. Presses unable to break even are closed, > or severely curtailed, as universities refocus on “strategic > priorities." Book prices rise at a rate far higher than inflation in > order to cover publishers’ fixed costs as institutional subventions > vanish. Authors are chosen not so much on the basis of prize-winning, > promising early work but rather because they can command the services of > a literary agent. > > full: > http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/06/26/essay-ideas-about-luxury-and-university-presses#sthash.xh1buA3X.dpbs > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
