From: Heather Morrison <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 2 May 2012 12:20:20 -0700

To state the obvious: the more expensive a journal is, the more an
increase costs in dollars given the same percentage. A journal price
increase for a costly journal can look small from a percentage
perspective, but actually be quite large from a dollars perspective.

To illustrate, consider this hypothetical (but realistic) scenario):

Small society journal (SSJ) has been charging a subscription fee of
$100. Unlike the large commercial scholarly publishers, this society
has not raised prices every year. This fee has not covered costs for
several years, and so the society has decided to increase the
subscription rate for this year to $150.

Original cost:    $100
New price:  $150
Increase in %:  50%
Increase in $:  $50

Commercial publisher journal (CPJ) has been charging a subscription
fee of $10,000. One of the reasons for this high fee is that prices
have been raised every year for the last few decades at rates above
inflation. This year, CPJ is raising their prices again by 5%, to
$10,500.

Original cost:  $10,000
New price:  $10,500
Increase in %:  5%
Increase in $:  $500

Discussion:  a 5% increase for a costly journal can easily cost ten
times more, in dollar terms, than a 50% increase for an inexpensive
journal.

Note that this analysis does not necessarily fit other formats such as
scholarly monographs, where the diversion of funding from monographs
to journals has distorted the market (less money for monographs means
fewer copies bought  and printed, raising prices on a per-copy basis).

Conclusion: when considering journal prices increases, dollar amounts
are more important than percentages. Also, the more expensive the
journal, the more important it is to negotiate lower or no price
increases.

best,

Heather G. Morrison
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com