A Cost-Profile of Journal-Publishing
Appendix 5: Association, with Multiple Journals

Version of 24 March 2006

This document is an Appendix to 'A Cost-Profile of Journal-Publishing'

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This document is at http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/JP-CP-AMJ.html

Category Description

This Appendix presents an indicative cost-profile for a particular kind of journal-publisher.

The organisational category addressed here is an Association that publishes multiple journals.

Two primary variants are considered, the conventional hard-copy and the eJournal approach. In either case, the Association conducts its publishing activity primarily as a service to its members, and secondarily for subscribers and (probably on a deferred basis) the general public. The revenue model is based on allocation of a proportion of the membership-fee.

To enable the computation of per-article estimates that are reasonably comparable with those for other categories, each journal is assumed to comprise quarterly Issues, each with 7-8 articles, for a total of 30 articles p.a.

Costs

Within each of the two primary variants of hard-copy or eJournal, a further choice exists:

• each journal may be run by its own dedicated team of academics and support staff;
• alternatively, economies of scale may be sought, through the performance of some activities centrally, by paid Association staff or outsourced service providers.

There are likely to be advantages for all concerned in using common production and distribution infrastructure, including templates, format-conversion tools, cataloguing tools, and the host, web-server and search-engine. Using common resources for the production activities, on the other hand, incurs additional coordination costs, and the net effect may well be cost-neutral.

A conservative approach is to assume that no cost-savings are available, and that the cost-profile for the five-journal association is simply five times that for the single-journal association.

Alternatively, savings can be made, or additional revenues raised. For example, members may receive only one journal as part of their membership fees, and have to pay a supplement for additional journals.

Hence:

TOTAL COSTS for Hard-Copy Journals

Establishment	Nil
Operations – Submission-Related	5 journals, each $12,000 p.a., equivalent to $3,000 per Issue or $400 per article
Operations – Article-Related	5 journals, each $10,000 p.a., equivalent to $2,500 per Issue or $330 per article
Operations – Issue-Related	5 journals, each $85,000 p.a., equivalent to $21,250 per Issue or $2,850 per article
Operations – Generic	5 journals, each $5,000 p.a., equivalent to $1,250 per Issue or $170 per article
Infrastructure Maintenance	Negligible
Financial	Negligible
TOTAL	5 journals, each $112,000 p.a., $28,000 per Issue or $3,750 per article, or $560,000 p.a.

TOTAL COSTS for eJournals

Establishment	Nil
Operations – Submission-Related	5 eJournals, each $12,000 p.a., equivalent to $3,000 per Issue or $400 per article
Operations – Article-Related	5 eJournals, each $10,000 p.a., equivalent to $2,500 per Issue or $330 per article
Operations – Issue-Related	Negligible
Operations – Generic	Negligible
Infrastructure Maintenance	Negligible
Financial	Negligible
TOTAL	5 eJournals, each $22,000 p.a., $5,500 per Issue or $730 per article, or $110,000 p.a.

Business Model

The undertakings are funded from the membership fees paid by Members of the Association, perhaps to some extent offset by non-member subscriptions (particularly libraries and other institutions) and advertising. For an Association of 10,000 Members, the publishing costs of 5 journals are up to about $55 p.a. for hard-copy journals, or $11 for eJournals (of a fee of perhaps $300). A small Association of, say, 250 members would face prohibitive costs of $2,240 per member for 5 hard-copy journals, or $440 per member even for 5 eJournals.

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Created: 31 March 2005 - Last Amended: 24 March 2006 by Roger Clarke - Site Last Verified: 15 February 2005
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