I agree with other respondents to David's posting, that it is most unusual these days for journal editors to receive no more than reimbursement of their expenses. I was a journal publisher for over a decade, and most of our editors received either an honorarium or a royalty - the latter was often preferred as it rewarded the editor for the success of her or his journal. Those journals published on behalf of societies usually funded a considerably more substantial honorarium from the Society to the editor - on occasions this even included a car. I once did a calculation to compare what we paid out to editors and societies for journals, compared with what we paid to book authors and editors - the journals figure came out slightly higher. In the case of medical journal editors, a formula was sometimes used to calculate a fee equivalent to a set number of hospital 'sessions'.
Actually universities also tend to require not only reimbursement of office costs, secretarial support and so on (which they used not to), but additionally in many cases a fairly hefty percentage markup for overheads. Sally Sally Morris, Secretary-General Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK Phone: 01903 871686 Fax: 01903 871457 E-mail: [email protected] ALPSP Website http://www.alpsp.org Learned Publishing is now online, free of charge, at www.learned-publishing.org ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Goodman" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 11:54 PM Subject: Re: Garfield: "Acknowledged Self-Archiving... > I certainly agree with Albert that > the critical role of a publisher is to > appoint an editor. Everything else about the > publication's quality depends on the manuscripts the editor can > acquire and the standards the editor sets. > > So why do publishers make large profits, while editors merely receive > office expense reimbursement? > > On Thu, > 12 Sep 2002, Albert Henderson wrote: > > > On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, Stevan Harnad wrote: > > > > > Publishers are essential contributors to the implementation of peer > > > review, but their art and skill does not lie in the making of the > > > judgments. Those judgments are made by the peer-reviewers -- > > > researchers who give away their services for free, just as the authors > > > are researchers who give away their research papers for free. > > > > Publishers recruit and train editors. Publishers > > may also support editors' office, meeting, and > > travel expenses. > > > > Editors recruit referees, solicit their > > advice and evaluate their reports. > > > > No automated server can ever replace editors, > > publishers, and their active approach to > > critical prepublication review. > > > > It is far more likely that the availability > > of preprints will become another excuse for > > backoffice budget misers to force the > > cancellation of more subscriptions. > > > > Best wishes, > > > > Albert Henderson > > Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000 > > <[email protected]> > > > > David Goodman > Research Librarian and > Biological Sciences Bibliographer > Princeton University Library > [email protected] 609-258-7785
