Profile
New entry tries new
publishing model
Bloomsbury is launching
an open-access monograph
imprint, writes John Murphy
Bloomsbury is well-known for being the
publisher that took a risk on an unknown
children’s author, JK Rowling. The risk, of
course, paid off, as the Harry Potter books went
on to be a huge success. Now the publisher
is taking a new risk in an entirely different
area. The fact that an established fiction
publisher has launched a new academic book
and monograph imprint is news in itself. But
Bloomsbury Academic is making its mark in
another way, too. It has opted for an open-
access business model.
There are already a few open-access
publishers of journals, although nowhere near
as many as traditional subscription publishers,
but the idea of making monographs free to
read online is fairly unchartered territory.
Bloomsbury Academic’s idea is to publish
books that can be freely downloaded from the
internet under a Creative Commons licence,
for non-commercial use. Separately, the same
titles will be sold, using publish-on-demand
(POD) technology to create small print runs. Frances Pinter is publishing director of new ‘free download’ imprint, Bloomsbury Academic.
Income will also be generated from royalties on
commercial usage, such as in ‘student packs’. to build a list of 50 titles by the end of 2009, there will be enough library sales of these high-
The thinking behind this model is that concentrating on the humanities. Pinter priced monograph books that they will cover
free academic and student usage will promote said: ‘My thesis is simple; you may lose a few the costs of the publishing added-value that
the title, reaching an audience which would sales because you are publishing free online, we bring. Most of the titles will sell enough
otherwise not have access to it. This in turn but then you gain sales because more people to make a reasonable profit. There will be the
will generate enough actual book sales and have heard of the book as they can read the odd book that takes off and the odd book that
royalties from commercial usage to finance content online. Most librarians know that falls flat. We expect to sell the same number of
the project. Although the books will still when an academic wants to read the whole units as we would under a traditional model.
have to cover their editorial costs, they will book, printing out 300 A4 pages, taking them But importantly, we will not have the stock in
not have to cover the costs of a full print run to their office, reading them and then putting the warehouse because we are using POD, so
that will sit in the inventory for many years. them on their shelf to never look at again is we have lowered the risk if a book flops.
not a very economic or eco-friendly way of ‘We think that there will be a lot of goodwill
Reaching a wider audience distributing knowledge. The most reasonably- towards the model and it will attract some
Bloomsbury Academic will be run by priced vessel of the content is the book. really good authors who are writing material of
publishing director Frances Pinter. She wants ‘Having talked to librarians, we believe interest globally,’ predicted Pinter. ‘We hope
18 Research Information December 2008/January 2009 www.researchinformation.info
RIdec08 pp18-19 Profile.indd 18 17/11/08 16:55:37
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