From: ANTHONY WATKINSON <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2013 07:48:48 +0100

My tongue was partly within my cheek Alex but only partly in the sense
that the sort of "first books" US university presses publish are very
difficult to publish "commercially". I tried in the 1970s. Does anyone
remember something called Seminar Press?

Anthony

From: LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, 31 July 2013, 22:25
Subject: Re: Embargoed dissertations

From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 22:35:20 -0400

Jonathan, I cannot speak about commercial presses, but I challenge you
to find university press published revised dissertations priced at
over $100 that aren't art books or books with some extraordinary
design/illustration/typology.  I can assure you there isn't a one on
the Temple University Press list and I haven't seen that sort of
pricing in any university press catalogue I've perused.  Please don't
make the all-too-common mistake of lumping university presses with
other academic presses.  (Perhaps Michael can tell us how many of the
university press books he described in his helpful, informative
posting are priced at $100 or more; I'd be shocked if it exceeded 1
percent but I'm prepared to be shown if I'm wrong.)

Anthony, I presume you had your tongue in your cheek when you said you
thought publishing the first book was the main role of university
presses.  In the 27 years I've been in university press publishing
that has never been the case, small press or large.  It's been a
valued part of our overall function but at no press where I worked was
it ever considered the main function.  The main function was to
establish the highest quality lists we could in the subject areas we
published, always including scholars of all rank and experience.

Cheers,

Alex Holzman