RE: Wiley-Blackwell 2009 Subscription and Licensing Options

["Okerson, Ann" <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

Indeed, as Joe Esposito wrote earlier today, costs are not 
necessarily identfiable or predictable; here I'm thinking 
*particularly* of startups such as BMC and PLoS.  Their pricing 
has increased by multiples in a relatively short number of years. 
The ideal of being inexpensive and affordable not infrequently 
has to be adjusted due to practical realities, such as growth 
(increased size and scale do seem to add to journal costs for 
some reason?), expectations and demands of readers for 
ever-greater functionalities or services, unexpected 
advertising/marketing costs (often underestimated in early days), 
and no doubt other factors.  When such idealistic publishers 
quickly raise their per article fees to keep up with (or catch up 
with) their costs, we librarians get no less annoyed with them 
than we do with Nature or Science, to name a few.

Also there are the "free" startups that now need to ask for 
subscription or membership funds to sustain them, as they didn't 
realize how much their service would cost, and that their 
institution wouldn't be able to afford to cover such costs in 
perpetuity.  (Isn't an increase from zero to something, termed 
"infinite?")

So, the challenge isn't just to budget for costs accurately each 
year.  It's also the case that this age, where every 
author/institution can be a publisher too, attracts novices, and 
they need a few years to learn the ropes.  In fact, even 
long-established publishers can become in some ways novices when 
jumping into new-tech publishing arenas.

Ann Okerson/Yale Library

________________________________________
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu [owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Paul N. Courant [pnc@umich.edu]
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 6:10 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu; espositoj@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Wiley-Blackwell 2009 Subscription and Licensing Options

And here we have the difference between non-profits and 
for-profits.  Joe Serene sets prices to cover costs,and including 
paying the folks who do the work.  Joe Esposito says the that the 
market sets prices, which can't quite be entirely true, because 
the quantity demanded of any title will depend in part on the 
price. As long as the price is high enough to cover costs, The 
publisher has a choice of prices. The obvious price for the 
publisher to pick(or at least to guess at and try to pick) is the 
profit-maximizing price, which will depend, per Joe E., on the 
market.

Paul N. Courant
University Librarian and Dean of Libraries
Harold T. Shapiro Professor of Public Policy
Professor of Economics and of Information
The University of Michigan

On 10/3/08 6:31 PM, "Joe Serene" <serene@aps.org> wrote:

> The American Physical Society is one such publisher; that's
> exactly how we set prices, and have for many years.  We do our
> best (not always as successfully as we would like) to estimate
> our expenses over a year in advance, and then set our prices to
> cover these estimated expenses plus a small fixed percentage
> return.  The results for 2009 can be found at
> http://librarians.aps.org/pressrelease2009pricing.pdf .
>
> We don't sell print-only subscriptions.  We regard print as an
> optional add-on to the primary online subscriptions, and we
> ascribe to the online journals all production costs except those
> specific to print. We then try to set the additional charges for
> print to cover just these specific print expenses.  This of
> course means that the cost of the print add-ons will grow as the
> number of print subscribers decreases.
>
> Joe Serene
> Treasurer/Publisher
> American Physical Society
>
>>>> "Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com> 10/02/08 12:28 PM >>>
>
> I suppose there are some publishers who justify prices based on
> the costs incurred, but I have never met any of them. Publishers
> typically justify prices (if they feel the need to justify them)
> based on the value of the products.  The justification is the
> mechanisms of the marketplace itself. When the marketplace
> believes appropriate value is delivered for the price, the
> product is purchased.  When the market believes the value is not
> up to snuff, there is no purchase.  The publisher does not set
> the prices; the market does.
>
> Joe Esposito