Academic Publishing at the Crossroads

Abstract

The new millennium is proving to be a testing time for academic publishers (Thompson 2005). Whereas the “long decade” from the early 1980s to 2000 was a buoyant period for many presses that were active in the field of academic publishing, including many of the university presses, the period since 2001 has been a rude awakening. Growth rates of university presses have fallen to the lowest levels in many years, returns from booksellers have reached unprecedented heights, and some university presses have been faced with the prospect of imminent closure. Nor has it been plain sailing for the big college-textbook publishers. Accustomed to annual growth rates of 6-8 percent, textbook publishers have suddenly found themselves faced with declining unit sales and surrounded by allegations that they are fleecing students with inflated prices (Lewin 2003). Why do academic publishers find themselves in such difficult circumstances and what, if anything, can they do about it?