From: Alison Mudditt <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 09:53:41 -0700

As Ann notes, we announced our OA monograph program, Luminos, earlier
this year. We have several manuscripts already in production and are
on track to publish nine Luminos titles this fall.

Monographs are the cornerstone of scholarly research in the humanities
and social sciences, and as a university press, this publishing is
central to our mission. Luminos offers a sustainable model for
publishing monographs—a model in which costs are shared between all
parties who benefit from publication—author or institution, publisher,
and libraries. As an open access program, Luminos is designed to
increase the visibility and impact of scholarly work by making it
globally accessible and freely available in digital format, without
any reduction in quality. Luminos monographs are subject to the same
exacting standards of selection and peer review as books published in
our traditional print program.

We have sought to keep Luminos’s publication costs as low as possible.
Our baseline cost per title is $15,000 (this rises with longer titles
and/or those with greater complexity, such as heavy illustration or
multimedia elements). The cost to each author will start at $7,500
(again, rising with increased length and complexity), and we assume
that this cost will typically be funded by one of a number of
potential sources at the author’s institution.

The remaining amount will be funded through a combination of ongoing
subsidy from UC Press, the sale of print copies, and revenue from
library membership. We will be rolling out additional information
about library membership shortly; in the meantime, you can see the
basic details on the Luminos website at www.luminosoa.org.

Alison Mudditt | Director
University of California Press
155 Grand Avenue, Suite 400 | Oakland | CA 94612-3758
Phone: 510-883-8240
www.ucpress.edu


On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 5:14 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:11:25 -0400
>
> When I asked about similar programs, I meant to ask which publishers
> will publish quality monographs if/when the author (or author's grant
> or author's institution) is able to cover the costs.  For example,
> here's CUP able to do it for $10,000; UC Open announced a $15,000 fee
> (but with possible subventions); some months back Routledge announced
> a program at 10,000 pounds.
>
> What other publishers are offering this, or are there so many now that
> mine is the wrong question?
>
> Also -- and perhaps I'm conflating two different trends -- we read the
> other day in the newly released Humanities Indicators report - thanks
> to Gary Price for this:
>
> http://www.humanitiesindicators.org/binaries/pdf/HI_HigherEd2015.pdf
>
> as follows:  "Despite concerns about the state of humanities
> publishing in recent years, the number of new academic titles released
> annually in the humanities was slightly higher in North America in
> 2012 than in 2009, rising from 48,597 new books published to 51,789."
>
> Somehow, it does seem to be becoming a little easier for humanists
> (and younger scholar humanists?) to get their books published?
>
> Cheers, Ann Okerson