(publishing — )
12 Nov. 2007
Shelley,
There is nothing more beautiful than a word. By extension, there is nothing more depressing than an unrecognized word. To that end, I wanted to verify that you had not yet re-released my long simmering word, ___ , back into the wild. I could hardly have hoped that you would wait over 3 years (!) for me to come through for you, but nothing would be sadder for me than to go out and claim my word only to discover there was no one to recognize it.
Best,
Alexis
PS: As I have just moved back to NYC, perhaps you might recommend a particular, favorite tattoo artist in the area?
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(academia, digital, economics, publishing, uselessness — )
31 Jul. 2007
It turns out, people just don't want to pay for academic books these days. So there've been a lot of rumblings the last few years about the possibility of changing publishing models, particularly for university presses and journals. Should we go digital? Should we have a sliding pay scale? Should we make the author pay for us to publish their work? Should we make the author's university pay?
But, all other things considered, I can't help but wonder if the real issue lies in this tiny, buried statement:
"Stanford rejects about 90 percent of submissions. Of the rejected ideas, Harvey said that about 60 percent either aren't of high enough quality or don't reflect Stanford's emphases as a press. But the other 40 percent are worthy of publication, he said. 'There are a huge number of project that we think "this is wonderful material, but there is a limited market."' " [emphasis mine]
- Inside Higher Ed
The Nature article linked above points the the same problem, even as they fail to note it as a problem (see Table 1).
Really, sometimes I just wonder what the point of academic publishing even is any more, aside from gladhanding and grandstanding. I mean, it definitely doesn't seem to be about educating or disseminating knowledge, so those are pretty much the only alternatives I can come up with given my limited imagination.
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