Looks like I've been demoted to Russell3 :( Pretty much right. The other costs are almost negligible - running a webserver, email/office equipment etc.
I estimated that it should only cost around $20,000 per annum to run a journal... We had the funding at that level. Cheers On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 06:00:58PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Russell3, > > Other than your time, what are the journal costs? I mean roughly. What are > the categories of cost? > > I am having a hard time imagining any. > > Nick > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf > Of Russell Standish > Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 3:14 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self publishing > > I self-published Theory of Nothing after the first 10 publishers turned it > down for "economic reasons" through BookSurge, which was later bought by > Amazon. > > It has sold somewhere in the region 550 copies to date. > > I made my costs back within a year - but the ebook version hardly sold at > all, even though I insisted on it being DRM-free. So I then released it as a > free DRM-free downloadle PDF, and it was downloaded more than 2000 times > before being torrented 18 months later. The availablility of the free > download had almost no impact on the sales of the hardcopy version - one > could argue that it even sustained the rate of sales, when otherwise it > might have trailed off. > > If you think how many people actually read your academic articles, this is a > roaring success story. The one thing it is not, is a viable source of > income. I can't give up my day job :(. > > Late last year, I produced a second edition, correcting a number of errors, > most trivial typos. At the same time, I produced a Kindle version, which is > sold through Kindle direct. Surprisingly, this has not done so well - > surprising because the Kindle is a dreadful displayer of PDF documents > (particularly with mathematical formulae), so the small sticker price should > be worth it for Kindle users over and above the free PDF document. > > ---- > > My second data point is an electronic journal "Complexity International" > which was started by a friend of mine in 1993. It is a peer reviewed journal > in the traditional sense but is purely web based and openly available > without subscription fees. > > It has run with fits and starts until now - at present, I gather, they're > not accepting submissions, but aim to at least keep the content available. > Part of that is due to funding being in fits and starts. Another problem was > that it never got indexed by ISI. > > In 2005 I offered to run the editing of the journal on the basis of 0.5-1 > day per week workload, for which I would receive a small fee from a > government funded networking program for complexity science. My friend said > that I was drastically underestimating the time commitment for editing a > journal, but I was basing my estimates on what Mark Bedau said he and > secretary spend on editing Artificial Life. Anyway, the upshot was that > nothing happened at the time, although he did manage to find someone to > process the back log of submission and conference papers they had at the > time. And now, I guess funding has run out, and the journal is on ice :(. > > Cheers > > > > On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 09:39:20PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Hi, everybody, > > > > > > > > I have signed perhaps a dozen Publishers Agreements over my life time > > and each one was more onerous, self-serving, and stupid than the one > > before. My favorite was the publisher who asked me to "hold the > > Publisher harmless for anything that might occur as a consequence of the > publishing of the work." > > I asked a lawyer if this meant I was liable if a printer got his hand > > caught in the press while my book was running and he answered, "Well, > > probably not." And then he thought for a moment and said, "Oh, > > they'ld never come after you for that!" Early contracts limited my > > liability to the income from royalties, and one publisher actually > provided authors' insurance for a > > modest premium. But no more. > > > > > > > > Well today, I got an author's contract for a paper I am contributed to > > an academic collection that asked me to warrant that the work had been > > commissioned by the publisher and was "work for hire". Now, work for > hire > > means that one's surrenders ALL rights to the work including the right > > to claim it as one's own work. It's the kind of contract you sign > > when you write jacket copy for a publisher. ( The publisher in this > > case was Oxford University Press, in case any of you are thinking of > > doing business with > > them.) I am a wishy washy fellow, but somehow I could not sign a > > document that said that my original work was "work for hire." Couldn't do > it. > > > > > > > > It's too late for this work. I will have to sign the rights over to > > my [young] collaborator, because she desperately needs the paper for > > her career. But MAN! It got me to thinking. WHAT ABOUT self > > publishing. With, say, Amazon" Does anybody on the list have any > > experience with Amazon or other self publishing services that they would > like to share? > > > > > > > > My Dad was a book publisher, and I grew up with conversations around > > the dinner table about "developing authors" and trying to find new > > authors, and how a few books might have to be published before a new > author caught on. > > They published Churchill's Memoires and Mein Kampf (!) and the Peterson > > Field Guides, among many others. Now, it seems, publishers do very > little, > > and academic publishers, in particular, do nothing but scavenge off > > the fetid bits coughed up the publish or perish system. Is is it time to > dump > > them? I am sure this is a party I am late to. Where do I get invited. > > > > > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > > > Clark University > > > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > http://www.cusf.org <http://www.cusf.org/> > > > > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe > > at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at > > http://www.friam.org > > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Principal, High Performance Coders > Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au > University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, > unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
