Why are (some) academic books so expensive?
I am going to dip into a subject which is of farthermost delicacy in the world of academic publishing. I am therefore going to avoid naming any detail parties in this issue, for two reasons. Beginning, as a publisher myself, I don't like people talking most what I do by name. Secondly, as a reviewer and author I bargain with a number of different publishers, and I don't want to single any one arrangement out. So instead I am going to focus on questions of policy and principle.
Hither's the scenario. A friend announces proudly on social media that she has contributed to an interesting and of import collection of essays. It relates to a pregnant area of interest in biblical studies; it includes some well-known names as contributors; and information technology offers an assessment of a key thinker in the subject. Only the cost that it will sell for ways that very few, if any, individuals will buy it, and so it will about likely exist read in and through libraries.
So my immediate comment is: 'It is unaffordable—and that is unnecessary.' I of the editors of the book then responds along these lines:
These kinds of books don't brand much money, and the publishers need to charge these prices to stay in business. The merely alternative is for these publishers to go out of business organization, and that volition exist a loss to everyone.
Well, as they say, shall we 'do the math'? Suppose this volume is priced at, say, €/$125, and suppose it then sells to around 600 libraries, just not to any individuals. The total revenue raised volition be €/$75,000. If the book was priced at a more than affordable level—let's say around €/$twoscore, which is £28, less than one third of the offset cost—how many boosted copies would the publisher need to sell to individuals in order to generate the same income? The answer is 75,000/forty – 600 = 1,275. Here's the question: is at that place a global marketplace for this volume to sell the boosted 1,275 copies? Well, I don't have statistics about the number of academics studying New Testament in the Anglophone world, just given there were almost eight,000 people at the annual Society of Biblical Literature briefing last Nov, I would answerYou lot betcha!
The paradox hither is what is known in microeconomics as 'price elasticity of demand'. At the current toll, most people are just not going to consider buying this, no matter how important it is. They will put upwardly with getting hold of information technology another fashion. But once y'all reduce the toll, and so everything starts to change. And the counter-intuitive reality is that the publisher might well generatemoreincome in full if the toll were lower. Then the 'keeping the publisher in business' argument doesn't quite work.
Information technology is worth looking at it in slightly different terms. Most of my fellow academics are working on fixed budgets for book purchases, commonly related to their institutional book allowance. Libraries, likewise, have fixed budgets. This means that, if a publisher increases the price of their volume, they are unlikely to increase their share of that fixed corporeality that is being spent on books. In fact, their total income might well reduce; if a book is expensive, I might consider information technology only if it is correct in the centre of my research interests. If it is in a related area, then I volition be tempted to buy it if it is affordable.
Of class, the publishers themselves are doing this kind of maths all the fourth dimension. They accept a bottom line to attend to, and someone, somewhere is making pricing decisions for each volume or serial. Only it looks from my rough sums as though the maths says that prices should be lowered—and a number of publishers recently have done just that. So what else is going on? My editor friend gives us a clue:
Nosotros needed to go with this prestigious publisher—we would non have attracted certain contributors if we had opted for a less prestigious only cheaper place of publication.
Detect the equation hither betwixt 'less prestigious' and 'cheaper.' I would like to raise a bones question here: what is the connectedness? Why does making one'southward books unaffordable to about of your market make one 'prestigious'? Information technology is a completely false equation, since these 2 issues relate to opposite ends of the publishing process. Whether or not one is 'prestigious' depends on the editorial decisions nigh who is published, and who is turned downwards, and the quality checks that are in identify. Whether or non books are affordable is a marketplace-related effect, and has piddling or cypher to do with editorial decisions. I suppose in that location is a instance to say that, if the authors are in demand, and then people volition be prepared to pay more to read them—merely in fact the arguments above about cost elasticity don't support that. Information technology could just work this style ifall 'prestigious' authors only ever published with 'prestigious' publishers, so in that location was a kind of monopoly—but that hasn't been the case for many years. Put just: shouldn't a book exist judged on the quality of content, not the price on the comprehend?
In fact, I would go further, and argue that this kind of pricing strategy is really damaging. It distorts the academic debate, since some ideas volition broadcast widely and quickly, whilst others (maybe even amend ones) remain locked upwards past an elite pricing strategy. It hinders education, since libraries are limited on the number of books they can stock—if prices were lower, they be able to hold a wider breadth of resources. And it is frustrating to anyone on a limited upkeep who wants to exist well read. I don't know a unmarried academic colleague who does not rely on their ain personal library in their reading, teaching preparation and research. If books were more than affordable, we would be better equipped.
In an age of lower press costs and the global exchange of ideas—isn't it fourth dimension for a alter?
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