LSE Media & Comms Imprint?
So we had a presentation at a seminar last semester from a lovely woman from Routledge who was commissioning editor for their line of media & communications books.? She informed us that the likely rewards of an academic book contract were on the order of a couple of hundred pounds (well, give or take); also, new just-in-time printing available now means that books effectively never go out of print ? and therefore the rights never revert to back to you, the author.? Just to be clear: she really was very friendly, and Routledge, I think, is a model publisher.?
But personally I can?t help thinking it?s a racket.? It?s based on an outdated model of publishing, in my opinion, so I set out to investigate an alternate.? Surely, I thought, these just-in-time printing facilities are available to others.? And, indeed, they are.
Here?s an example of how they work.
One of the most professional seems to be an American outfit called Xlibris.? (There are also others, including Lulu, iUniverse, Authorhouse, Trafford, Booklocker, Publish and be damned?- mostly American) Here we find their ?basic service? costs $500 (about ?270 in today?s crazy exchange scenario).? You get a choice of cover designs and interior layouts.? They give you an ISBN and a barcode, register you at a range of online stores and Books in Print, and give you a Web page to promote your book.? (And in January, you get 10 free copies!).? And you retain all the rights.??
You then get 10% of the cover price if you sell through these bookstores (or others, like campus bookstores, who might order copies).? Or you can sell them yourself, but you have to pay 60% of cover price.? Prices vary by page count.
For illustrative purposes, let?s imagine a 250 page book which we hope will sell 1000 copies.? An Xlibris-published version? would retail at Amazon, say, for $21.99. You would receive $2.20 per copy, or $2,200.? Less the $500 you paid, that would be $1,700.? To break even, you?d only have to sell about 25 copies.
But, I hear you say.? But, but, but.? I need a job.? I need a reputable publisher.? And, God help me, I need proofreading and editing.? And help marketing.
This is where I think the LSE and other institutions should come in.? We should form a group and develop the ?LSE Media & Communications Series? or the ?MeCCSA Publishing co-operative?.? We should go to all these publishers, we should negotiate preferential rates, and we should develop a link with a low-cost editing house.? And the collective should be funded, so that it can help absorb initial costs.?
Result: improved brand for LSE, authors keep their rights and earn more royalties.
Now tell me, what?s wrong with this scenario?
January 24th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
Just a quick note: PABD (publish and be damned) is the UK representative in that clutch of printers on demand. Here’s a Guardian article about them.
Elizabeth
January 24th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
It’s an interesting idea but how would we handle the cost of editing? Of indexing (sometimes the author picks up this tab, sometimes the publisher does)? Of illustrations? And of putting catalogues through the letterboxes of thousands of libraries to persuade them our titles are worth purchasing?
And of course there’s the question of the brand. If I could get my book published by Routledge I would probably be foolish to choose to publish in the “LSE Media & Communications Series” instead - which I fear would make the imprint seem like a place where Routledge and Sage’s cast-offs go. It’s not fair, but I’m sure that’s why we don’t see more of the kind of indie publishing you describe.
The big question for me (derived from the last issue above) is, “would we reject people”? If we didn’t reject anyone the imprint might not be taken seriously (even if it came from a good brand like the LSE’s). If we did we’d have to have some kind of peer review system running.
Note: As you probably know there is already an all-electronic Media@LSE working Papers collection. To be a devil’s advocate, why not publish books this way and ask people to print them out if they want to read them?
February 18th, 2005 at 2:17 pm
[...] New company Qoop promises to do it all for you - like the traditional vanity press model EVC alluded to earlier but tailored for moving online media offline. Thanks to John Battelle for th [...]