From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2017 23:24:33 -0400

In media industries in general, including publishing and including
scholarly publishing as well, marketing is typically half of all
expenditures in one form or another. Putting metadata into a discovery
service is a good thing, but it is not a very big thing.

More people would know about the Oxfam publications (which, BTW, I had
never heard of until I saw this post, and I read about scholarly
communications all day long) if they had a price on them and were
actively marketed. Open access is not an innovation; it is a
capitulation. If the products were worthy of grasping even a small
amount of the attention of the potential readership, a paywall is no
barrier at all. Many things become open access (this is particularly
true of monographs) because there is no end-user demand for them.  And
so I ask the obvious question: If these publications are so good, why
won't anyone pay for them?

I would love to put together a marketing plan for the Oxfam
publications. They would not be open, but more people would know about
them and read them. Marketing is everything in media.

Joe Esposito