[Air-L] book announcement

[jeremy hunsinger]

well for our book, which is more expensive, I'm not that uncomfortable with the price, as really the book is not conceived as an individual purchase.  It is an institutional purchase.  It is part of a larger package of hundreds of handbooks that Springer licenses to universities and other institutions.  as such, it actually isn't in their interest to sell tens of thousands of this sort of book, because that would devalue the digital licensing of the book, which is where they'll make their money in the long run.  I'd clearly say that our handbook was not a handbook that would be anything other than a reference book for the long term.  It was imagined as a book where you'd go the library, or order it through inter-library loan, photocopy or scan the chapters you want, and use them individually.  indeed the chapters are even individually purchasable... at even more exorbitant rates.   But, as I said before, I'd rather your university library buy a copy then you buy a copy.  

basically, books have three sort of markets in academia I think.

personal purchase books, which are books you'd purchase for your own library.  generally they are under $50.00, usually under $30, and the best sellers are usually under $20, best selling books in academia are those that sell around 2000 copies, more than 2000 and you are amazing.  

class and teaching purpose books, these are the books designed to be the core or periphery of classes.   they cost rarely less than 50 and rarely more than 200.   these are textbook type books.  they are bought by students primarily and are a huge profit center for presses.

library books, which are usually reference books are books that range from around 100 to around 20000 dollars and are meant to be bought by libraries for the use of many people over the long term.




Jeremy Hunsinger
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
Virginia Tech


Live without dead time.
-graffitti Paris 1968