Re: Book on future of STM publishers

From: Albert Henderson <chessNIC_at_COMPUSERVE.COM>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 18:46:46 -0400

On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Fytton Rowland wrote:

> It has always been quite easy (if you have the money) to get a book printed.
> Publishers are not printers. The business of getting a book printed is only
> one (and not the most important) of a publishing company's functions.

        By the same token, putting a work on the web is not
        the most important publishing function.

> Editing
> to improve the quality of the raw product from the author is one of the
> important ones, and marketing to bring it to the attention of those who might
> be interested in its content is the other. I believe that both of these
> functions remain important in an electronic-only environment.
>
        In addition, the publishers' primary contribution
        would be their (selection and) investment. Spending
        mondy conveys a level of recognition that lifts
        the work far beyond the chaos of vanity self-
        "archiving." For readers and buyers it is a dramatic
        change in signal-to-noise. It also commits the
        publishers to obtaining a return on their investment
        achieved through the hard work of dissemination,
        distribution, marketing, salesmanship, and whatever
        else one might call the toils of publishing.

Albert Henderson
Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
<70244.1532_at_compuserve.com>
Received on Wed Jul 24 2002 - 23:46:46 BST