From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:57:29 -0600


Joe's hypothetical here applies more to the handful of largest presses
than it does to the majority of university presses that are members of
the AAUP, and it doesn't distinguish between two types of trade books
that would be quite differently affected by the ebook aggregations
that are now being offered to academic libraries.

Based on our experience as a mid-sized press at Penn State, I can tell
you that our largest customer was Baker & Taylor, around 50%, and
almost all those sales were to institutions, not retail bookstores or
individuals, through its Yankee Book Peddler subsidiary.  Amazon came
in second, at around 35%, and at least some of those sales probably
went to libraries as we know, from an AAUP survey, that libraries do
purchase some books through Amazon. The remaining sales were to
college and retail bookstores and direct to individuals.  Also, about
40% of our sales were paperbacks, and except for one significant
category, those sales were almost entirely for course use.  Unlike the
largest presses, we (and most smaller university presses) did not
engage in a major way in trade publishing, so sales to individuals did
not constitute nearly as large a percentage of sales as for Joe's
hypothetical $10 million press.

The major exception here, especially for presses attached to state
universities, was regional trade publishing, and for some presses,
like New Mexico, this could constitute as high as 60% or more of total
revenue.  These sales generally went through retail bookstore and
sometimes non-bookstore outlets as well,  in both cloth and paperback,
and relatively few sales were for course use or to libraries anywhere
outside the state. It seems to me highly unlikely that the new ebook
aggregations will contain any significant number of regional trade
titles, and hence I do not foresee any harmful cannibalization effect
of these new programs on the sales to individuals of this type of
university press title.  None of the largest presses that Joe is
thinking about--Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale--do
any regional book publishing, nor do the giant British presses, OUP or
CUP.  (California would be an exception here, but of course it is a
very large press attached to a state institution, unlike the others.)

Sandy Thatcher



> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:16:34 -0800
>
> Alex,
>
> Your figure of 5-10% digital for U. presses is very interesting.  I
> know things are headed in that direction, but I am surprised to see
> that they are there already except for a small number of presses that
> have been assiduous in pursuing digital opportunities.
>
> We may be using different definitions of two items, however.  First, I
> was not including books sold as part of library aggregations in my
> figures because such sales (through Ebrary or Netlibrary, etc.) are
> perhaps better construed as subsidiary rights sales.  I am aware that
> the question of what is a sale, what is a license (hence a subsidiary
> right) is a vexed one in the publishing industry right now, with very
> significant sums of money potentially hanging on the interpretation,
> but I am not referring to that open question as I put the numbers
> together.
>
> The other matter of definition is what is a university press book?  I
> define a U. press book as any book published by a U. press.  Others
> distinguish among the various types of U. press publications--e.g.,
> trade vs. monographs. How one construes the output of a press will
> alter the figures.
>
> I think, however, that whatever formulation one uses, we may not agree
> on one aspect of digital publishing where libraries are the target
> customer, and that is that I believe that the terms of sale of some
> aggregations may in fact lower U. press sales overall.  I don't wish
> to address any particular program, but will explain my thinking as a
> hypothetical.
>
> Let's imagine a U. press with total book sales of $10 million.  Using
> my definition of what a U. press book is (that is, anything published
> by a U. press), the sales of this press likely fall into a few
> categories. About 25% of total sales go to libraries.  About 25% are
> for course adoptions.  About 10% are sold as exports (where they
> ultimately end up is unknown for this example).  That leaves 40%,
> which are sold to individuals.  Now, who are these individuals?  My
> hypothesis is that the majority of these individuals are members of a
> U. community.  Let's put that number (based on no evidence) at 75% of
> the individuals---that is, 75% of 40% or 30% of the press's total
> sales volume.  If that number seems high, take a look at the lists of
> U. presses and imagine their readership.  Who will read Yale's
> biography of Jonathan Edwards?  Who will read Rutgers' books on
> women's studies?  It seem probable that these are academic books sold
> to academicians.  Someone like myself, with no U. affiliation, but who
> nonetheless may purchase a U. press book or two each year must
> represent a tiny minority of U. press customers.
>
> So out of 100% of total revenue, 25% goes to libraries and 55% goes to
> students and faculty and U. staff.  Now we take U. press books and
> make them available in digital form, including remote access, to the
> entire U. community.  Now, instead of the library representing 25% of
> sales,the library may in fact reach to the other 55% affiliated with
> the U. community.  In other words, the library has now extended its
> reach into individual sales and course adoptions.  This is a role the
> library never had before.
>
> The word for this is cannibalization.  A digital aggregation of U.
> press books stands a chance to diminish or even eliminate sales to
> U.-affiliated individuals and students.  If such a program is not
> carefully crafted, it could serve to weaken some already tottering U.
> presses even further.
>
> The general point to make is that the real question is not print vs.
> digital but the marketing issue:  Who is the customer?  It's necessary
> to solve that problem first and then look to the format that best
> serves that market afterward.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 7:23 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>  From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]>
>>  Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:31:13 -0500
>>
>>  Joe,
>>
>>  I think for university presses it's getting to be more like 5-10%
>>  electronic now.  I agree overall numbers will trail trade publishing
>>  for a bit, but if UPCC and other efforts succeed to the degree I think
>>  they may, then the scholarly monograph that sells only 300 copies (or
>>  fewer, heaven help us) will be more like 75-80% electronic in pretty
>>  short order.  The monographs are overwhelmingly sold to libraries and
>>  what we're hearing is a preference for electronic, Chuck's good points
>>  about difficult archiving issues notwithstanding.  PDA seems likely
>>  only to accelerate the e-trend.
>>
>>  Of course I could be entirely wrong.....
>>
>>  Alex
>>
>>  Alex Holzman
>>  Director
>>  Temple University Press
>>  Email: [log in to unmask]
>>  http://www.temple.edu/tempress