Ok, you can be Russell4, Your figure of 20K: That includes some $$$ for "staff"?
Or is that just stuff? I know this is naïve, but do you actually NEED a printer? Is there a "Peer-review-Journal ap" like there apparently is an academic-conference-running ap? This is something I would like to hear you get into the weeds about. Nick -----Original Message----- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russell Standish Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 2:00 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self publishing 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 ============================================================ 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
