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