As the Marketing Manager of HSRC Press, Karen Bruns has a fairly good idea of what is needed to achieve success in this line of business....
"As far as we know, the HSRC Press is South Africa's only open access publisher. We think we might be the only open access publisher in Africa but as we haven't been able to verify that, we really can't make that claim. We publish both in print and in electronic form. It's one of the things that make us unique and it's probably the most exciting part of what it is that we're doing. It feels very pioneering and at the same time, we're increasing both the pool of and access to high quality social science research-based publications.”
"Considering where we're located, I am often asked whether we only publish the research output of the Human Science Research Council (HSRC). While we do manage all of the intellectual property of the HSRC, the answer is no, as we publish many externally authored works - provided they're furthering the social sciences, which is the mandate of the organisation in terms of a statutory act.” ...
"[W]hat most people ask us most often is whether the open access model assists in selling more books! The question is most often accompanied by a cynical eyebrow and a wary expression. I am just as wary to answer, because my answer would have to be that we have seen significant year on year sales increases since our inception in 2002."
According to Karen, their success can be linked to the improvement of their products, the increase of their sales network, and their growing efficiencies. She is wary of pinning their success to the adoption of the open access model, as she wouldn’t want publishers, librarians, authors, academics, policymakers, or civil society to think for one minute that the adoption thereof was a marketing ploy!
“The reason that we have adopted this model...is that we wanted to assist in opening access to quality social science in Africa - both to Africa and from Africa.” ...
Thanks to Eve Gray for the alert, as well as for this comment:
Karen strikes a chord for me in this interview when she comments wryly on the fact that that the most common question people ask is whether Open Access online provision sells more books. As she says, that is not the point at all. I cannot imagine that book sales come anywhere near covering the costs of the publishing department. The HSRC provides generous financial support for the HSRC Press, presumably because the organisation finds that this is a good investment. Having its research effectively and widely disseminated achieves the purpose of the research council, ensuring that its research findings have significant development impact. Moreover, I would imagine that its successfully marketed publications profile the HSRC very effectively in the eyes of the government that funds it and contributes to its ability to attract private research contracts to expand its research activities and supplement its public funding.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/23/2006 03:29:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
