Hugh McGuire, What Publishing Can Learn From Music, Huffington Post, October 15, 2008. This is about book publishers. How far does it carry over to journal publishers? Excerpt:
The book publishing business has a great advantage over other big media industries. For various reasons, publishing is late to the digital party. So it can look to all the many mistakes the music business made in the past decade, and decide how to move into the uncertain future. Here is some unsolicited advice to ponder while ignoring the Dow.
Five Lessons Publishing Should Learn from Music
1. An iPod for Books Will Change Everything....
2. Think Beyond DRM....
3. If You Help Us, We Will Buy
The music business and Hollywood made a big mistake by fighting online distribution....
So, to publishers: Make your stuff available online. Make it easy to find. Make it easy to buy. And don't insult us: if a physical book -- with the cost of production, distribution and retail overhead -- is worth $20, a digital book is not. Cut the price accordingly. Take your margin, but don't abuse your customers with outrageous prices for e-books (otherwise, we will find other ways to get our books).
4. Don't Be Afraid of Free
Do you remember how in the olden days, the publishing business lead a massive effort to shut down public libraries, because free was the enemy of the publishing business? How they fought to stop people giving a gift of their favorite books to a friend? Me neither. Libraries help readers, they help publishers, they help books in general....
5. Find Out What Your Customers Want
Then build your business around that....Don't try to shoehorn us into an old business model that doesn't make sense with new technology. Your job is not to force customers to behave the way you want them to. Your job is to find out what your customers want, and then deliver it to them. Times are changing. Find out what we want, what we need, and then help us get it....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/15/2008 11:37:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
