From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:56:27 -0500

This is an interesting and useful analysis.  Still, I don't think it
alters the basic (evolving) facts:  PLoS ONE is terribly overpriced.
It is a hosting service; it makes not qualitative judgments.  It is
thus what is known as a "commodity business," which means that
competition takes place on price alone.  The cost of Gold OA (better
described as "author-pays") services will continue to come down.  This
means that the services these organizations provide will be challenged
in terms of their cost structure.  Anyone who has ever visited the
offices of PLoS in San Francisco knows that this is an unsustainable
situation.  We should expect to see all manner of means to lower these
costs, including setting up operations in low-cost areas and
determining ways to reduce the complexity and cost of peer review even
further.

Joe Esposito


On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 9:41 AM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: "Hosburgh, Nathan" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:02:21 -0700
>
> Regarding the comparison with PLOS:
>
> - PLOS charges an author fee of $1,350
> - they offer partial/full fee waivers in certain circumstances
> - they are a non-profit and their main revenue source is from publication fees
>
> http://blogs.plos.org/everyone/authors/
>
> Sage is a for-profit publisher and I imagine their main revenue source
> is subscriptions.  Sage Open is one OA journal from a publisher of
> many non-OA journals.  Sage publishes more than 700 journals spanning
> the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology, and
> Medicine.  Only a few of these journal titles appear to be full Gold
> OA.  Sage offers 'Sage Choice', an OA option for authors who wish to
> make their research articles freely available upon publication - this
> appears to be available for any Sage journal.
>
> "For the majority of journals published by SAGE the fee per article is
> $3,000USD/£1600GPB in Science, Technology and Medical fields, and
> $1,500/£800 in the Humanities and Social Sciences."
> http://www.uk.sagepub.com/sagechoice.sp
>
> So, it seems Sage is extending this one OA journal with very
> reasonable publishing fees as a sign of goodwill/PR tool.  The $3,000
> article fee would probably be a better comparison with the $1,350
> charged by PLOS since they publish STM material.
>
> Regardless, this is interesting news - thanks for posting.
>
> Nate
>
> Nathan Hosburgh
> Electronic Resources Librarian
> Assistant Professor
> Montana State University Library
> Bozeman, MT 59717-3320
> [log in to unmask]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Heather Morrison [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 10:42 AM
> To: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum; [log in to unmask] T.F.; Global Open
> Access List (Successor of AmSci)
> Subject: Sage Open price now $99
>
> Sage Open has reduced their open access article processing fee to $99
> per article. The announcement is posted here:
> http://www.uk.sagepub.com/aboutus/press/2013/jan/24_jan.htm
>
> This is not the first OA publisher to come out with prices in this
> range. PeerJ, established by Peter Binfield (formerly PLoS ONE), has
> open access fees on a lifetime membership basis starting from $99.
>
> This raises some interesting questions. For example:
>
> What is the real cost of publishing in an open access online
> environment? Sage OPEN and PeerJ are both commercial companies. If $99
> is sufficient to cover the costs of coordinating peer review and
> publication, why would anyone pay even the $1,350 charged by PLoS ONE,
> never mind the $3,000 plus charged by some of the traditional
> publishers under hybrid arrangements?
>
> Is this an indication that transitioning to open access will indeed
> open up the inelastic market for scholarly journals to competition?
>
> best,
>
> Heather G. Morrison, PhD