Winning Strategies for Journal Publishers

Although we in scholarly publishing typically focus on the problems we face, there is a small group of highly successful journal publishers. These publishers fall into three broad categories. To a great extent, these publishers are resistant to challenge.

The Mixed Marriage of For-profit and Not-for-profit Publishing

Scholarly publishing is virtually unique in that it has significant representation by both for-profit and not-for-profit publishers. This alters the very nature of this segment of publishing, making the not-for-profits more business-like and forcing the for-profits to behave at times like mission-based organizations.

Birds Do It, Bees Do It

We are likely to see increased mergers and acquisitions activity in the publishing world this year, and scholarly publishing is not exempt from this. There are many reasons for this, including such fundamental factors as low interest rates, but one reason is the growth of open access mandates from funding agencies, which is disrupting the way many organizations do business.