[Air-L] book announcement

[Steve Jones]

Since I was mentioned in Charles' email that started this thread....

I think Jeremy sums it up pretty well. I can't speak to Lang's business model, I haven't a clue about it. What I do know is that the books in Digital Formations aren't intended nor marketed to be "handbooks" or "reference books." In general those are perceived as very different from other types of books, textbooks and monographs. They usually have smaller press runs, more pages, are targeted at libraries (and other institutional buyers) and not individual buyers. Some presses publish only reference books, others publish a mix of those and other books. The business model relies on high prices to presumably at least break even with relatively few unit sales.

Sylvie Noel brought up in a subsequent email that there are people who publish e-books at very low cost (and, I would add, there are probably others who provide their work for free). There are alternatives such as these and others, and I have always encouraged AoIR to consider alternatives in general, so perhaps this is something to think about and to do. However, I would (always) add that it is not something we should look to AoIR to instigate, it is something that should come from members and those on air-l, who, if they are interested in pursuing alternatives, should pursue them and seek the support of AoIR (whatever form that support might take). 

Similarly, I would very much like to encourage people to consider danah's recommendation in an email not part of the 'book announcement' thread of Ignite talks (and other forms of presentation) at the next AoIR. They need not even be within the structure of the program, but could take place at other points in time during the conference. 

Part (perhaps a big part) of what one faces when proposing and engaging in alternatives to traditional scholarly modes of presentation is the seeming recalcitrance of the academy, but in my experience it can't hurt to try, and it just might help a lot.

Thanks,

Steve

On Mar 9, 2011, at 4:45 AM, jeremy hunsinger wrote:

> 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.
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> 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.
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> 
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> 
> Jeremy Hunsinger
> Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
> Virginia Tech
> 
> 
> Live without dead time.
> -graffitti Paris 1968
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> 
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