[Air-L] book prices

[Jonathan Sterne, Dr.]

Hi Everyone,

I've been reading this discussion with interest.  The future of publishing is an ongoing discussion in many fields.  Lots of people are coming up with new models and alternative publishing arrangements.  AoIR ought to consider at least officially endorsing some of the better electronic journals related to Internet Studies so that assistant profs can use that endorsement in their tenure dossiers.  But ultimately, it will be organized people who change things.  Publishers add value through paying for labor, and the main problem with open access for now is precisely that.  Someone has to copyedit, lay out and proof materials as well as maintain the site.  Once people figure out robust  and sustainable funding models, this will be even more viable than it already is.

Of course, for nonprofit university presses, income from journal publishing subsidizes book publishing, which in most cases is a big financial loss for the press.  So those of you in book fields should be a little circumspect about celebrating the death of the journal.  

But Wiley and Blackwell are for-profit publishers.  Their handbooks (and Oxford's) follow a business model.  Publishers approach authors whom they believe to be leaders in a field (or who want to be and are up and coming) to edit the handbook.  The editors are told that the handbook will be a way to bring a field forward, collect the latest and greatest scholarship and help define the field.  Then, the editors generate lots of value for the press by bringing in friends and colleagues with the opportunity to be part of a field-defining conversation (or in some cases calling in favors).  The collection is made, published, authors are paid a nominal fee and asked to sign away their rights with an incredibly restrictive author's agreement, and then the book is published.  These publishers hope to sell to libraries first and then piece them out in electronic form for a period of years, which is probably one of the reasons for the ridiculous agreements contributors are asked to sign.  This all works great for the publisher, but as of yet, the "field defining" part hasn't happened in a lot of places.  the books need to be read to have their effect, and the fact that they are only available in DRMed online versions or in libraries means even in bookish fields, they appear to be having less impact than was promised.

How do I know?  I've been asked by publishers more than once to edit a collection like this (I declined) and have contributed to a few so I've seen both sides of it.  Now, I'm not innocent here -- this discussion led me to go looking and I see Amazon is listing the hardback version of my forthcoming Sound Studies Reader at $125, but at least the softcover will be cheaper.  And I'm actively working to change how I deal with this in new ventures (I wasn't as attentive to these things when Routledge and I negotiated several years ago--and I will raise the issue with them).  

I've written a lot about authors' rights on my blog -- see http://superbon.net/?p=1681 for example (and read Ted's article that I've linked to!) and would encourage people who care about these things to educate themselves, and make things like the contributor's contract a political issue -- which it already is.  Obviously, those of us with tenure have to be the ones to do some of the heavy lifting. 

Best,
--Jonathan

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