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Many authors do not intend to make much revenue from books (textbooks or research books) they contribute to, yet they don't make it open access. Why?

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Franck Dernoncourt
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    Because the publisher? – ff524 Feb 24 '16 at 20:04
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    @ff524 Why not choosing a publisher that allows the book to be open access? – Franck Dernoncourt Feb 24 '16 at 20:08
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    Probably because open access is relatively low in the list of considerations for choosing a publisher. – ff524 Feb 24 '16 at 20:09
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    To me the real question here is "what value is added by the publisher". – David Ketcheson Feb 25 '16 at 06:44
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    Note that the publisher intends to make revenue from the book - or at least not make a massive loss - even if the authors don't. If you're planning to publish it entirely OA, you need a) to find some way of offsetting the publisher's production costs (which are very substantial); or b) publish it yourself. Which of these situations do you envisage? The answers are massively different. – Andrew is gone Feb 25 '16 at 08:37
  • Because it was a lot of work to write it, so whoever wants it should pay for it? – gnasher729 Feb 25 '16 at 12:27
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    @gnasher729 Most money doesn't go to people who didn't most of the work (viz., the authors). – Franck Dernoncourt Feb 25 '16 at 15:04
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    @DavidKetcheson That's indeed one of the main questions behind. – Franck Dernoncourt Feb 25 '16 at 15:05
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    @DavidKetcheson oh I don't know, let's see: the publisher gets the book refereed (creating prestige for the author by agreeing to publish it following the reviewing process, assuming it's a reputable publisher with high standards); copyedit the book; design a front and back cover; print the book; market the book; sell the book on their website and on Amazon, at professional conferences etc.; send you sales reports and royalties. I suppose you could in theory do all of those things yourself or through a vanity press. Do you also grow and hunt your own food? Generate your own electricity? – Dan Romik Feb 25 '16 at 17:31
  • @FranckDernoncourt: Where did I talk about receiving money? I talked about people paying. Demonstrating that they appreciate the work by putting their hands in their pockets. – gnasher729 Feb 25 '16 at 21:53
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    @DanRomik Many Stack Exchange users do grow their own food or generate their own electric power. And Amazon is starting to offer more and more of those services through CreateSpace and KDP. – Damian Yerrick Feb 25 '16 at 22:09
  • @DamianYerrick well I guess those would be the people who also self-publish the books they write, printing them on a homemade printing press running on their self-generated electric power, using paper made from a pulp they mixed themselves, while eating their homegrown food. I'm sure they would have plenty of time left over to do cutting-edge research to generate content for the books they're writing. – Dan Romik Feb 25 '16 at 22:28
  • @DanRomik I do believe the publisher adds value. I simply said that the question should be phrased as focusing on that, since that is the heart of the matter. – David Ketcheson Feb 26 '16 at 04:14
  • self-publish the books they write, printing them on a homemade printing press running on their self-generated electric power, using paper made from a pulp they mixed themselves, while eating their homegrown food. — Yeah, pretty much. What's your point? – JeffE Jul 02 '16 at 20:40
  • Easy answer: Something that's greater than zero is greater than zero. – zibadawa timmy Jul 17 '16 at 00:52
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    Don't worry most of the books available are still open through GenLib. – IgotiT Jul 17 '16 at 03:41
  • @IgotiT yes – Franck Dernoncourt Jul 17 '16 at 03:48

6 Answers6

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There are a number of reasons why not to, and they stem from the reasons one might want to publish a book, even if you aren't making much if any money:

  • The prestige of the publisher matters. For many tenure committees, professional organizations, etc. "A Book from BigDeal University Press" > "Some Markdown Files on Github" or what have you in terms of evaluation. In effect, you are getting paid, but in prestige and reputation rather than money.
  • Publishers take care of a number of things that, if you're self-publishing an open access book you have to do yourself, including copy-editing, layout, and most importantly, finding peer reviewers.
  • Seeing a book adopted widely (another part of the whole prestige aspect) will likely be more difficult for an open-access book, at least at present, where they are fairly common. Who is going to do the marketing? Has it actually been properly peer reviewed? Are there nice, hard-bound copies available (some of us like reading things on paper), etc.

That is not to say that there are not some very successful efforts in my field to do open access books. Hernan and Robins causal inference book, for example, has drafts and code available online: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/miguel-hernan/causal-inference-book/

But neither one of those authors is in the position to need much benefit from a book publication, and it's still being placed in a traditional press when it's finished.

Fomite
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    Nice answer (+1). A slightly off-topic question for you, if you don't mind: can you comment on what are essential differences, if any, between the book by Hernan & Robins you've mentioned and the classic treatment by Judea Pearl (and, perhaps, other books on the topic)? – Aleksandr Blekh Feb 24 '16 at 21:00
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    In your first bullet, I would go so far as to replace > with >> (or \gg). – Nate Eldredge Feb 24 '16 at 21:04
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    @AleksandrBlekh As disclaimer, I am not a causal inference researcher. I use computational models, which cheat, and are inherently counterfactual. But I know people who are. My generally feeling is that Pearl's book is more technical and a bit heavier on graph theoretical framing of things. Miguel Hernan is particularly adept at making causal inference concepts clear, and IIRC the book is geared more toward potential outcome frameworks, which are more clearly applicable to epidemiologists. – Fomite Feb 24 '16 at 21:43
  • @Fomite: I appreciate your insights (+1) - they are very helpful (and I have a similar sentiment about the Pearl's book upon a very brief review of its contents). I will definitely make sure to read the Hernan & Robins' book eventually, as I'm interested in causal inference. – Aleksandr Blekh Feb 24 '16 at 22:18
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    @NateEldredge: This is true, but don't you find this state of things very unfortunate? IMHO, a publisher's prestige is a relatively fuzzy concept, based on questionable value (excluding the stance of tenure committees, professional organizations, etc.). By "value" I mean value to science and humankind's knowledge. (to be continued) – Aleksandr Blekh Feb 24 '16 at 22:31
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    @NateEldredge: (cont'd) All those technical aspects could be easily outsourced to relevant companies (copy-editing, layout, etc.) and academic professionals (peer reviewing). This would take away an unreasonably significant power from publishers ("gatekeepers of knowledge") and place it to whom it belongs - to producers of knowledge (authors, researchers, peer reviewers, etc.). – Aleksandr Blekh Feb 24 '16 at 22:31
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    @AleksandrBlekh: Well, I'm not saying it's ideal. But this comment thread is hardly the place for a detailed discussion on the current state of academic publishing. – Nate Eldredge Feb 24 '16 at 22:34
  • @NateEldredge: I guess, you're right about that :-). – Aleksandr Blekh Feb 24 '16 at 22:41
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    For many tenure committees, professional organizations, etc. "A Book from BigDeal University Press" > "Some Markdown Files on Github" : where by "many" you mean "all". – Dan Romik Feb 25 '16 at 00:45
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    Publishers, even "big-name" publishers no longer take care of copyediting or layout. They expect you to deliver camera-ready copy that they can put their copyright on and sell for a lot of money, giving you peanuts, if at all. I encourage you to self-publish, either by putting a PDF online, or through a self-publishing printers. We just have to educate the tenure committees that publishers are no longer academic, but money-making companies. – Debora Weber-Wulff Feb 25 '16 at 20:19
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    @DeboraWeber-Wulff This will come as a great shock to the copy editor working on a chapter I just completed, which is definitely not camera ready. – Fomite Feb 25 '16 at 20:30
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    Freely available books are not unheard of in mathematics, either: for example, Allen Hatcher has put up his algebraic topology textbook on his website, white David Fremlin published (under a copyleft license) the source code of his four-volume measure theory monograph. – tomasz Feb 26 '16 at 03:49
  • @DanRomik where by "many" you mean "all" — No, where by "many" he means "most", but (from personal experience) definitely not all. – JeffE Jul 02 '16 at 20:43
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    @JeffE In fairness, my tenure committee's response would probably be "Why were you writing books at all?" – Fomite Jul 04 '16 at 05:23
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    Regarding your third point, a lot of books are not properly peer-reviewed either. – John Jul 17 '16 at 16:31
  • "nice, hard-bound copies available" doesn't make sense to me -- you could have a print-on-demand version of your open-access book so people who want a hard copy can order one. – a3nm Jul 03 '20 at 09:40
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Many authors do not intend to make much revenue from books (textbooks or research books) they contribute to, yet they don't make it open access. Why?

First, while authors may not "intend" to make much revenue, that still does not mean that they will happily give up whatever revenue they are actually going to make (and keep in mind that the actual amount of revenue is impossible to predict with accuracy at the time an author needs to make this decision). So if an author feels that making their book open-access will lead to a loss of revenue, then unless that author is sufficiently generous, passionate about open-access, and/or financially well-off, not insisting on making the book available as open-access would be a completely rational decision, regardless of whether the publisher would give permission or not.

Second, and more importantly in my opinion, after you have spent a few years and a huge amount of labor and creative energy writing a book, the idea of giving it away for free is simply ... uncomfortable, even for purely psychological reasons. I decided to make my book open access and am quite happy with my decision, but I can completely understand and respect authors who have made the opposite decision, and don't think such a decision should be criticized by anyone who hasn't gone through a similar creative journey themselves.

Dan Romik
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As the entry level for self-publishing is now very low, there is a whole swamp of the low quality content. Once you join this swamp, it is very difficult to raise above it, as nobody can find you. A good quality content initially belonging to this swamp takes long time to be noticed, if ever.

It is critical to have the public reviewing system not for picking best of the best but first for discarding the really low quality junk. Automated search tools, even Google technologies, cannot do this properly, as the junkwriters are often much more experts in "search engine optimization". Hence they trash with lots of revenue generating ads around somehow always takes if not the first then at least a second place in the search results.

The only way known for me to mitigate this is to link (or publish in) the official website of the notable university. Web search will take this into consideration, but the option is not easily available for all potentially good publishers.

It is the lack of the serious public reviewing system that hinders publishing of the free content.

algorithmic_fungus
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ff524 basically answered in the comment: publishers don't usually allow it. Just as with journal articles it might be possible to negotiate publishing under an open access license for a fee. Sometimes it is also possible to negotiate being allowed to publish a "preprint" version on your homepage or a preprint server such as the arXiv. Typically this is a version without the editing and layout work done by the publisher.

Of course authors can just decide to not publish with a publisher (or self-publish) and just upload the book to their homepage, as many people do. You will miss out on royalties (not a big deal, as noted in the question) and marketing efforts of the publisher.

Pieter Naaijkens
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    "Of course authors can just decide to not publish with a publisher (or self-publish) and just upload the book to their homepage, but this has basically the same status as articles that are not peer reviewed." I must say that I disagree with this. On the one hand, part of the peer review process is the prestige of publishing in the most competitive journals. There is no "Annals of textbook publishing," and (at least) in many academic fields, publishing textbooks is viewed more like service than research... – Pete L. Clark Feb 24 '16 at 20:18
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    On the other hand, I don't think that textbooks are "peer reviewed" -- parts of them are looked over by people designated by the textbook company, but not in the same way. Moreover, textbooks are not published solely because their content is innovate or novel -- there is no way to explain the flood of nearly identical calculus textbooks in these terms. They are published because the publisher thinks they can make money.... – Pete L. Clark Feb 24 '16 at 20:20
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    In my opinion, a high-quality self-published textbook nowadays confers most of the rewards of traditional publishing. The main differences are: (i) the royalties, which are usually rather nominal but a few people (think Stewart of Stewart's calculus) can make real money. (ii) the marketing. Because the publisher wants to sell the text, they have resources available to promote it that most individual authors lack. Those with sufficient web-presence or social media savvy can compete with this, but most academics do not have the time or skills for this. – Pete L. Clark Feb 24 '16 at 20:22
  • By the way, in the above comments I had in mind mostly textbooks. I see now that the OP didn't specify. When it comes to a research monograph, prestige of the publishing company does play some role. – Pete L. Clark Feb 24 '16 at 20:24
  • @PeteL.Clark: I agree with you, the distinction is not as important as for articles. And you are right that peer review of books in general cannot be compared to peer review of articles. There is however a selection procedure, in the sense that serious publishers don't publish anything that gets submitted to them. Of course if you are already an established and visible researcher in your field there may be little difference to publishing with a publisher and on your own homepage. – Pieter Naaijkens Feb 24 '16 at 21:33
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    With the textbook company I signed with, part of the agreement is that they publish it for say... 3 years, and afterwards I can do what I want with it as all rights revert back to me. That could be fairly common. – Rick Henderson Feb 25 '16 at 01:46
  • -1 because the answer is incorrect. Most publishers allow open access books, the author just has be ready to pay for them the same way they pay for OA journal articles. See e.g. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/open-access-policies/open-access-books. – Allure Jun 21 '18 at 07:51
  • @Allure: that's what I say in my answer: with many publishers you can publish under an open access license for a fee. – Pieter Naaijkens Jun 21 '18 at 09:10
  • Your answer implies most publishers don't allow open access books though. I haven't done thorough studies, but my sense is that most publishers allow it. – Allure Jun 21 '18 at 09:20
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I'm surprised at all the answers given because they all seem to miss the point.

If you publish something open-access, you need to pay for it. An author publishing a non-OA book receives author royalties. The same author publishing an OA book has to pay the publisher. The price is not cheap. Check out Cambridge University Press's website on OA books.

How much are your Book Processing Charges? Our standard charge for a monograph of up to 120,000 words is £9,500/$14,500/€13,000 (excluding any applicable VAT or local sales tax), and £55/$84/€76 per additional thousand words. We are usually able to offer a discount of £2/$3/€2.5 per page for camera ready copy. We do, however, consider each book individually. Additional fees may apply depending upon the complexity of the work.

It's one thing to write a book and make little/no money. It's another to actually lose money writing the book. Yes, CUP's website also says you will continue to receive royalties, but OA means the content is available for free. How many people will pay for the book when they can already read for free?

tl; dr: authors don't make books OA because it doesn't make economic sense.

Allure
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    Good point. Going through a publisher is optional though. – Franck Dernoncourt Jun 21 '18 at 08:04
  • @FranckDernoncourt it might be just me reacting to the term 'open access', since it has a very specific meaning in my experience. If you're thinking of "why not just make the book freely available on the author's website without engaging a publisher", that would be a different question entirely. – Allure Jun 21 '18 at 08:29
  • "you need to pay for it" if you go via a publisher. These book processing charges don't represent actual costs that you would incur if you just hosted your book online yourself (which costs ~nothing). – a3nm Jul 03 '20 at 09:41
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There is a point about human nature - people tend to value things according to how much they have to pay to get them. An author might well feel that if people can download something for free from a website that it will not be valued. As a user of some excellent free software and the recipient of some excellent free advice here, I know that this is not always true, but other users and other authors might not agree with me.

There is also the obverse to this - that some people will ask, "If it's that good, why is she giving it away?" This meshes with the belief that anything which is valuable can be "monetized" and anything which cannot have a numeric value put on it, does not have value.

Again, I think that the internet is changing these perceptions, but not for everyone and not in every circumstance.

deeplyblue
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