From: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2013 06:31:43 +0000

OA or not OA, all content needs to be marketed if it is to attract an
audience. This is because there is a surfeit of information at
everyone's fingertips the volume of which is growing far faster than
anyone's ability to absorb let alone keep up with. Reading time is the
scarce resource and publishers must compete to win a share for their
content, whether journal articles, books or datasets. It could be
argued that discovering that an article or book exists is a larger
barrier to access than whether it is OA or not; either way, discovery
is a prerequisite to access and therefore that's a core competitive
challenge for publishers. Hence the vital importance of marketing
content, whether OA or not.

At OECD we're working hard to build a larger readership since we know
a 'post-and-hope' policy doesn't do the job even if the content is OA.
Our marketing mix includes: press/media, direct mail, e-mail, social
media, SEO, discovery channel management, exhibits and old-fashioned
knocking on doors. It seems to be working: our readership (measured by
downloads) has tripled over the past two years to more than a million
downloads a month and we're reaching a much more global audience too.
Last year just four countries failed to download an OECD publication
(North Korea, Turkmenistan, South Sudan and Central African Republic)
and we saw the fastest growth in Africa and South-East Asia.

Toby Green
Head of Publishing
OECD


On 2 Aug 2013, at 05:01, "LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Jean-Claude Guédon <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2013 11:24:30 -0400
>
> OA journals and OA monographs fundamentally differ from each other. OA
> journals are routinely (if stupidly) ranked with the help of the
> infamous impact factor. Marketing fundamentally rests on touting the
> IF of a journal (with all three meaningless decimals). No such ranking
> system exists for monographs. Instead, a fuzzy reputational system
> based on the name of the press prevails.
>
> The person to query about all this is Eeclo Ferwerda who heads the
> OAPEN Foundation. He certainly would have a lot of things to say about
> marketing OA monographs. OHP, ANU Press in Australia, Athabasca U
> Press in Canada are other presses that have valuable experience with
> OA monographs. Apologies for other presses I am forgetting here, but
> the NAP in the US should be queried as well.
>
> Jean-Claude Guédon
>
>
> Le mercredi 31 juillet 2013 à 17:26 -0400, LIBLICENSE a écrit :
> From: ANTHONY WATKINSON <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 12:12:51 +0100
>
> The opinion in the world of journals is that an OA journal demands
> just as much marketing and probably more marketing (as a new journal)
> that one published under the traditional model.
>
> Anthony
>
>
> From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 17:26:23 -0500
>
>> An interesting side
>> question is whether an OA monograph requires marketing.  I'd argue it
>> does--more cost--but perhaps others disagree.
>
> I can tell you this much, Alex: in discussing this very question among
> members of the search committee for the new director of the OA Amherst
> College Press we reached a firm consensus that marketing is needed for
> monographs published OA, but it will probably take different
> forms--involving social media more, for example--than in the print
> environment.
>
> Sandy Thatcher