Comments on: Delusions, Illusions, and the True Costs of Digital Publishing

By: Does Rejecting Papers Amount to More Than Just a Transaction Cost? « The Scholarly Kitchen

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 09:25:13 +0000

[...] response to a recent post about how ongoing digital costs are changing some fundamental assumptions about publis…, requests popped up to explore the cost of rejecting papers. And while at first I thought about the [...]

By: Why the Open Access Financial Model Will Continue to Transmogrify « The Scholarly Kitchen

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:17:05 +0000

[...] The fixed costs of digital publishing are something I’ve argued need to come front and center …. We’re becoming much more like service providers and software companies than manufacturing companies, and our financial models need to change accordingly. It’s pretty clear that the OA movement’s basic premise was based on how digital publishing rearranged some manufacturing assumptions (once the production costs are paid, distribution is free). The problem is that the initial model didn’t account for the new service and software expectations. [...]

By: John

John — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:40:53 +0000

Kent,

Having been part of the physical print world most of my carrier I find this to be the most intellegent point of view I have seen when it comes to looking at how to think of and construct the new Publsihing Model. This is all about the distribution model for content and its interoperability which will have a very different mix for Publisher of all kinds in the future. Publishers who get this are spending a good deal of time gathering the RIGHT date to see what the new mix will look like along with all associated costs. On the Magazine side of the equation I would look at multi media magazines like CATCH to understand what end users will value going forward in this genre. How to price this for the market will be interesting to follow as today CATCH is free. Given the quality and dynamic nature of the content I would be happy to pay an annual fee for this on line magazine higher then any print centric magazine subscription I have ever had. Value is going to be all about the customer expereince which has always been the case.

By: Barbara Miller

Barbara Miller — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 04:05:44 +0000

Yes–refreshing. Once in an online group I brought up that we have launched satellites to make this happen–that ebk is not so much simpler nor is it less expensive to produce and or enhance than pbk.

By: Mary Grace Stefanchik

Mary Grace Stefanchik — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:28:03 +0000

Hi Kent,

Great posting! I’m going to add a link from my ASMEbooks Twitter site.

By: Elsewhere on the Web 2 August 2010 | The Digital Reader

Elsewhere on the Web 2 August 2010 | The Digital Reader — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:04:59 +0000

[...] Delusions, Illusions, and the True Costs of Digital Publishing A premise of the Internet publishing revolutionaries has been that because distribution is ubiquitous, the marginal cost of content approaches zero, meaning that information should become much cheaper than it once was. In fact, it should be free once a modicum of cost is paid for — hence, the open access model, for instance, or the devalued online access prices for institutional access, for another instance. [...]

By: Verlage: Kosten- und Ertragsrechnung des digitalen Publizierens | MedienFabrik

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:56:10 +0000

[...] haben wir noch einen hervorragenden Beitrag über die Realität des digitalen Publizierens bei der Society for Scholarly Publishing [...]

By: David Wojick

David Wojick — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:56:20 +0000

There is no magic here. Economics is the science of the rational allocation of scarce resources. Business is the art of making what people will pay for. The challenge arises because we have new modes of production and distribution. The so-called new business model is simply a matter of finding those products and services that people will pay enough for, to make them worth producing.

It is a normal technological revolution. Analogs are not necessarily useful, in fact there may be none. Trial and painful answer is the only path forward overall, but there are lots of individual strategies and business models.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:07:02 +0000

Great article. However, the transition to new business models is going to be rockier than Condé Nast, et al., imagines. Sure, people pay $180 for their cable bill, but they think that the individual programs they watch are free and that they are only paying for the cable service. Indeed, even on cable many TV channels still must survive on ad revenue.
Since Condé Nast is a content provider and not a distributor, it’s hard to imagine how they can adopt a distributor’s business model and make it work. According to the NY Times, the goal of the overhaul is to charge customers directly more for what they read. Would people really pay more than $12 a month for reading Condé Nast’s magazines online? Even with a pay per article model, how much would people be willing to pay for an article that they will read only once? This is not like buying a song on iTunes, where the songs will be listened to over and over again. Nor is it like buying software, which will be used for several years by the consumer after purchase.
Further, continuing the cable TV analogy, cable TV has driven the profit margins of the old Big 3 TV networks into the ground, as they have many more competitors than before, and yet still much higher expenses than these competitors. This same phenomenon is happening in the realm of digital media as well. Condé Nast produces some of the most beautiful–but expensive–magazines in print. However, given their high costs, how can they compete if they go head to head with a plethora of newer content providers whose costs are quite a bit lower?

By: Kent Anderson

Kent Anderson — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:22:02 +0000

We’re beginning to talk about enhancements to the Scholarly Kitchen, and those are on the list.