From: JJE Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 18 May 2018 11:18:41 -0400

Jim,

I think you are conflating two issues: inclusive access and textbook
aggregations.

Inclusive access (I dislike the term) is just as you say. Students pay for
texts when they sign up for courses. They get lower prices (on digital
texts), while publishers get a near-guarantee that every student will buy a
copy of the book. Publishers can make more money with this model than they
can from the traditional model, where students independently choose whether
or not to purchase a book. I wrote about this here:

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/03/27/reduce-
cost-college-textbooks/

What Cengage is doing is trying out the "Netflix for books" model and
marrying it to inclusive access. In "Netflix for books" you pay one price
for a large collection. You may use one book or dozens, but the price is
the same. Cengage is attempting to get their aggregation to be accepted in
an institution's inclusive access program.

The gripe the authors have with Cengage is that they claim Cengage never
negotiated with them on the royalties for books that are included in
aggregations. How would that royalty be determined? For the sale of a
single copy of a book, an author might receive 10% of the publisher's net
receipts. But for an aggregation? How is usage of the aggregation to be
allocated to all the authors? Can Cengage include an author's work in such
an aggregation without the author's express permission?

The not surprising fact is that publishers could make more from inclusive
access than they do with legacy models, but authors may make less. Time
will tell.

I do believe that libraries will increasingly lead institutional
negotiations for inclusive access. I am involved with such a project now,
and I don't believe it will be my last.

Joe Esposito

-- 
Joseph J. Esposito
[log in to unmask]
@josephjesposito
+Joseph Esposito


On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 11:14 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 17 May 2018 20:06:44 -0700
>
> The price of textbooks and the consequent burden on students is a hot
> topic in higher education, leading both to initiatives to expand the usage
> of Open Educational Resources (OERs – roughly open-access textbooks) and to
> experiments in different pricing models by which publishers offer
> e-textbooks.  One commonly discussed model is a ‘subscription’ or ‘site
> license’ to attain ‘inclusive access’ by charging a single price to an
> institution for access to all the students in a given course.  This
> usually leads to lower cost-per-student and (and this is what academics
> like) much broader access to textbooks by students where now many choose
> not to buy textbooks they find too expensive.
>
>
>
> So now a publisher is facing blowback from textbook authors:
>
>
>
> https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/05/16/textboo
> k-authors-sue-cengage-over-subscription-model#.Wvx3HR7yzeA.twitter
>
>
>
> Without knowing anywhere near enough facts of the case, I think it’s
> permitted to wonder whether a lower price guaranteed for a larger number of
> students might not in some cases bring equal revenue to publishers and
> authors over a current situation where non-purchase, reliance on
> second-hand texts, and the like already brings less than the notional
> maximum revenue that would come from 100% of students paying retail price.
>
>
>
> My view is that libraries will be increasingly pressed to engage in this
> space, whatever models emerge as preferable.
>
>
>
> Jim O’Donnell
>
> Arizona State University
>