Society Publishing

Publishing partnerships can help society journals

Bob Campbell of Wiley-Blackwell reveals how the role of society publishers has changed and why many are turning to larger commercial partners

For the three centuries up until the Second World War journals were published largely by national societies, with university presses and academic publishing houses producing the rest. With the launch of Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) in 1947 Elsevier pioneered a new concept: the international English-language research journal from a commercial publisher. BBA was to become the largest primary journal in the world (in 1979 44 volumes were published). It took some nerve too; apparently BBA made heavy losses in the early years. Robert Maxwell of Pergamon and others

were quick to understand this business model, and as investment in tertiary education and research gained momentum, so publishers followed, by publishing more pages and new titles. The amount of material published increased more or less in line with the growth in the research community, around two to four per cent per annum. The once dominant self-publishing societies lost market share for two reasons. Firstly, the size of their journals was limited by what members could afford. They could never grow an individual title in the way that Elsevier drove up BBA. And secondly, they were not specialist publishers. There were many other calls on their budgets from the different activities of the societies and they could not fund the losses that a new title usually incurred in its fi rst fi ve years.

Recent pressures

Some learned societies have competed successfully in the global publishing market, for example in chemistry and physics, but for many it has become more diffi cult. They do not all have international sales forces to negotiate the ‘big deal’ and similar

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licensing arrangements with libraries and consortia. They also need to keep up with the technology and the options for outsourcing, say, distribution, subscription management and aspects of production, although there are excellent suppliers of such services. Society publishers may also be concerned about the possible threat of new publishing models and the so-called green road approach to open access, which might be described as the ‘no-one pays’ model and is therefore ultimately unsustainable. With such pressures it is not surprising

that learned societies have turned to the larger international publishers when faced with these issues. It can be a huge decision for them though. They might feel they are giving up their independence, there could be redundancies, the publishing unit’s contribution to offi ce overheads might be lost and the society’s brand (often closely associated with the journal’s brand) might be

diluted or diminished in a long list of titles. The society has to talk through all

these concerns with prospective publisher partners. It will usually put out an RFP (Request for Proposals), often with the help of an outside consultant or agent, and work through long, detailed submissions from eight to 10 publishers. Societies will often listen to presentations from a short-list of three to fi ve.

Getting the right partnership

The right deal will secure for the society ultimate control of all the major publishing policies, especially editorial, and establish a genuine partnership. The society provides the brand (and it will be in the best interest of the publisher to enhance this), the subject knowledge, and the editorial team, who may well ask society members to peer review submissions. The publisher provides publishing services and expertise, ranging from supporting the editorial team and advising on strategy, to sales and the online delivery platform. An important aspect is the fi nances.

With the publisher’s economies of scale and specialist skills, the net income from the

Bringing journals together: society partners join Wiley-Blackwell’s own journals on the Wiley InterScience platform.

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