Open publishing at work
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1) Polimetrica was founded in 2004 with the goal of creating an international scientific publisher in Italy that provides high quality content at low prices and makes knowledge accessible. 2) In its first year, Polimetrica published 8 titles and saw sales of a few hundred books. It faced challenges around long production timelines and difficulties distributing internationally. 3) Polimetrica adapted to changes in publishing trends like open access and digital distribution. By 2008, it had published over 80 books, 43 as open access, and was collaborating with 200 people and multiple distribution channels.
Open publishing at work
- 1. Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica nico@polimetrica.eu http://www.polimetrica.com November 10, 2008 Bocconi University
- 2. A bit of context January 2004. Polimetricas birthday Goal. Create an international scienti鍖c publisher in Italy Some keywords. High quality contents, low prices, accessible knowledge, good service, research oriented Idealistic view of knowledge. Knowledge makes every man free to design and build his own future in a conscious way Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 2
- 3. Some preliminary questions Content. How to publish good quality books? Price. How to earn money keeping low prices? Distribution. How to sell scienti鍖c books in the Italian and international market? Production. How to manage the book production cycle? Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 3
- 4. Business milestones Team. Find good editors, who 鍖nd good authors, who write good books / Create a good editorial of鍖ce Format. Sell printed books Royalties. 10% on sales to editors, 10% on sales to authors Small prices. 15/20 euro each book Production. Digital printing, a few hundred books stock Distribution channels. E-commerce, academic import/export booksellers, selected scienti鍖c bookshops Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 4
- 5. 2004. First year Published books. 8 titles, 6 written by Italian-based authors, 2 written by international authors Sales. A few hundreds Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 5
- 6. Dif鍖culties Time investment. Writing good books requires time, necessity for long term plans to support production International commercialization. Shipping costs from Italy to Extra UE countries double the book price Distribution channels. No access from an Italian publisher to international channels like Amazon. No convenience in using the local channels, that ask for a 60% royalty on the book cover price. Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 6
- 7. Scenario changes 1/3 Web 2.0. Blogs, wikis, electronic journals, social networks and other interactive tools become more and more popular Print on demand. Thanks to service like Lulu.com people can print their books without paying the production costs Open access. Open access to scienti鍖c literature starts becoming a value in a few part of the academic communities Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 7
- 8. Scenario changes 2/3 Open copyright licenses. Copyleft licenses become more structured, popular and usable Distribution channels. Services like Amazon become accessible also to non US publishers A new player in the game. Companies start sharing and publishing their knowledge for marketing purposes Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 8
- 9. Scenario changes 3/3 Mobile hardware. Mobile devices, subnotebooks, netbooks, ebook readers come into the market Internet connections. Internet connections become cheaper, quicker and requested by the middle class Media contents. Thanks to media portable devices, 鍖le compression formats, internet connections and services, there is an increase in the media contents production and sharing Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 9
- 10. Some trends Everyone becomes an author. SMS, email, blog and other interactive communication tools become widely used Printed contents, monologue vs Electronic contents, dialogue Knowledge as a common good. Online information is perceived and expected to be freely accessible and usable Closed knowledge products vs Open knowledge products Toward a global, interactive, open knowledge society? Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 10
- 11. 2005. Brave new year First open access books. We published our 鍖rst open access books, electronic edition free and printed edition available in the market International dimension. 12 new books published, 6 international products More investment in R&D. We start up a laboratory devoted to the study of new media technologies and new business models in the publishing 鍖eld Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 11
- 12. 2006/08. Consolidation More books. 80 books published More open access books. 43 open access books published More collaborators. 200 people involved in the project: management team, editorial of鍖ce, printers, editors, authors More distribution channels. Amazon, Google Books, Arxiv, E- LIS and other More experimental projects. The language of science, Publishing studies Open access becomes a key value Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 12
- 13. Open access model 1/2 Double edition. Each book is published in two editions: electronic edition and printed edition Electronic edition. Electronic edition is free, open access and some cases open source; it can be downloaded from our and partners website, it is also available in Google Books and other channels Printed edition. Printed edition is distributed via Amazon, our website, e-commerce channels, import/export booksellers, international academic bookstores Both editions have an identi鍖cation code: ISBN and, in case, ISSN Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 13
- 14. Open access model 2/2 Partner. Universities are partners of Polimetrica; they fund part of the open access publications, share the risks and also the pro鍖ts Open access license. Every book is published under the terms of an agreement between Polimetrica and the university. In this agreement there is a clause about the open access policy: The electronic edition of this book is not sold and is made available in free access. Every contribution is published according to the terms of Polimetrica License B. Polimetrica License B gives anyone the possibility to distribute the contents of the work, provided that the authors of the work and the publisher are always recognised and mentioned. It does not allow use of the contents of the work for commercial purposes or for pro鍖t. Polimetrica Publisher has the exclusive right to publish and to sell the contents of the work in paper and electronic format and by any other means of publication. Additional rights on the contents of the work are the authors property From product publishing to service publishing Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 14
- 15. Problems Academic culture. The great part of academic researchers still doesnt act for publishing and doesnt share their research results in an open access way Funding policy. In the ordinary European and Italian funding policy there is not a mandatory rule about the distribution of money for publishing research results in an open access way. Self publishing. Many academic departments self-publish their research results, without the support of a publisher At present OA publishing is still a niche Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 15
- 16. Many thanks Giandomenico Sica POLIMETRICA Corso Milano 26 20052 Monza Milano Phone: +39.039.2301829 Skype: nicosica Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicosica Next stop Open publishing at work Giandomenico Sica - nico@polimetrica.eu November 10, 2008 - Bocconi University 15