From: leo waaijers <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 08:47:36 +0200 @ Jan Erik, "So it is up to libraries and other buyers or buyers' representatives to work towards such a change." Which is, "the creating of a competitive market" But there is such a market place already: www.qoam.eu. This market place is based on academic crowd sourcing. Libraries are asked to complete Base Score Cards, measuring the transparancy of a journal's web site with respect to editorial board, peer review, governance and workflow. Authors are asked to share their experience with a journal they published in via Valuation Score Cards. The market place also gives the publication fees for a journnal, including the price effects of memberships, licences and offseting deals. Smaller publishers react positively and are prepared to cooperate, e.g. by inviting their authors to score the journals or to submit the discounts for member institutions. Libraries remain passive, in general. Alas. Best, Leo. Op 11-8-2017 om 2:14 schreef LIBLICENSE: From: "Jan Erik Frantsvåg" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 08:20:50 +0000 Joe, you are right: High profit margins at Hindawi cannot be a result of their controlling a monopoly (or sale of aggregations). But only to a degree: They could be (and I believe they must be) a result of high prices in the publishing market, not connected to high costs but to monopolistic competition. No need for H to set much lower prices than competitors, but with low costs they can earn much money as long as pricing in the market is set by the large players who control monopolies, and how have high costs, often for historical reasons. The numbers I found some years ago indicated that Hindawi's 50 per cent profit margin came from APCs lower than Elsevier's per article profit. Which means that there is much room for cost-cutting and lowering of prices if a competitive marked for APCs can be created. The larger publishers won't have the creating of a competitive market high on their agenda, quite the opposite. So it is up to libraries and other buyer's or buyers' representatives to work towards such a change. Best, Jan Erik