It’s a question that has lurked around the edges of our campfire for a while — what if publishers paid authors of research papers? Quickly, it becomes clear why this is very unlikely to happen — for financial, ethical, and practical reasons.
We were wrong to expect that online publishing would be cheaper and simpler than print. Acknowledging that, and facing the slower, more complicated commercial world it has created, could put us on a better path.
Guest Chef Elisabeth Jones offers a critical analysis of a widely-distributed statistical chart that seems to show a doubling in the unit cost of monographs since 1985.
A short video explaining the costs that go into producing a book, and how little difference there is in those costs between electronic and print books.