From: ANTHONY WATKINSON <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 12:12:51 +0100

The opinion in the world of journals is that an OA journal demands
just as much marketing and probably more marketing (as a new journal)
that one published under the traditional model.

Anthony


From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 17:26:23 -0500

> An interesting side
> question is whether an OA monograph requires marketing.  I'd argue it
> does--more cost--but perhaps others disagree.

I can tell you this much, Alex: in discussing this very question among
members of the search committee for the new director of the OA Amherst
College Press we reached a firm consensus that marketing is needed for
monographs published OA, but it will probably take different
forms--involving social media more, for example--than in the print
environment.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 18:28:13 -0400
>
> Wouldn't an appropriately funded OA model (perhaps partly via
> something like the way Knowledge Unlatched will raise funds, partly
> through the author's institution, occasionally via grant support)
> solve this problem?  All libraries and scholars would have access to a
> digital form of the undoubtedly more useful book rather than the raw
> dissertation and university presses would have their costs covered.
> I've always seen one benefit of open access being its potential as a
> way to eliminate the free-rider problem in scholarly monograph
> publishing and this might be a way to start down that road and benefit
> students, faculty, libraries, and presses alike.  (Universities
> providing financial support to their presses currently bear a cost
> that universities without presses avoid--an unfairness not often
> mentioned.)  Of course, to work this would mean the OA support covered
> all university press costs including overheads. An interesting side
> question is whether an OA monograph requires marketing.  I'd argue it
> does--more cost--but perhaps others disagree.
>
> BTW, my own press definitely considers revised dissertations, but the
> final decision to publish or not can include the forecast sales.  And
> while the decline in library sales for already-available electronic
> dissertations may seem marginal to YBP, university presses these days
> often have zero wiggle room.  That's part of a whole different problem
> for discussion another time.
>
> Alex Holzman
> Temple Univ. Press