If:Book and The Valve are working on starting up a new electronic publisher. Academic publishing, they argue, is dying, and mostly because of electronic media. When people can find what they need online, they don’t look to books. When libraries are spending massive amounts of money building their electronic resources, book purchases suffer, and academic presses lose their primary revenue stream.
If only these books were published online, or with a print-on-demand model, they argue, then they could be produced more cheaply, and the possibility of producing more books would be enhanced. The primary obstacle is production — where to find people to do the technical parts of the job: layout and design.
But are layout and design really the primary barriers to creating an online academic press? What about identifying good texts, and convincing authors to publish them with your rinky-dink startup instead of Oxford or Chicago? I suppose the reason Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Bob Stein aren’t so concerned about this is that they are confident in their ability to handle this part of the job.
Scholars want others to read their work, so in principle, it shouldn’t be difficult to convince them to release it for free, with the hope of reaching a larger audience. They typically don’t make any money publishing with an academic press anyway, so why not use an open source model?
What I’m trying to envision is what happens after ElectraPress opens and publishes its first book. When the first happy new author makes her first cocktail party appearance after getting published, what does she say? I know what she would say if her book had been published at Harvard or Yale: she’d mention it in a subtle little aside, with a gleam in her eye: “oh, my book’s just come in from Harvard,” she’d say, relishing the jealous stares of her colleagues.
“Oh, that’s fabulous,” they’d intone, instantly recognizing that their friend’s tenure worries are history. They’d know this woman would be their colleague for the next 30 years, unless she gets poached by another, more prestigious institution.
But if her book was published by Electra instead, the conversation would take a different turn. Assuming any comment was made at all, it might take this form: “Electra — I haven’t heard of them — are they a new outfit?”
Now our newly-published heroine’s confidence might flag a bit. She’d wonder about the best way to explain how this new venture works, how to demonstrate to her friends that this isn’t some vanity press. “Yes, it’s a joint venture of The Valve and the Institute for the Future of the Book.”
“Oh, I think I’ve heard of The Valve,” the reply might come. “Isn’t that a blog?”
Even if our heroine does manage to explain what ElectraPress is all about, it’s not going to have the same ring to it as [insert prestigious institution here] University Press. It’s not going to have that instant cachet that says “your tenure worries are over.”
This is not to say that no one will want to publish with Electra, or even that many excellent scholars won’t find it a valuable resource. And I don’t doubt that Fitzpatrick, Holbo, and the rest are well aware of the difficulties they face. I do think, however, that layout and design will be the least of their problems as they work to build their new service.