What were we thinking?

• A great time to enter academic publishing– Publishers cutting back on titles– Publishers ceasing operations– Good scholarship going unpublished – Recurrent good news/bad news joke:

• “Your book has passed peer review…”• “…but we can’t afford to publish it.”

Warning signs or signs of opportunity?

Underlying factors

• Books becoming increasingly expensive, largely due to rising cost of paper

• Library budgets for books growing increasingly tight

• University press budgets shrinking as costs keep rising

• And then there’s the ugliest word in academic publishing…

SUBVENTION

So..what WERE we thinking?

Rice University’s (not necessarily coordinated)

response

• 1996: Rice University Press euthanized• 1999: Connexions founded

– Create– Mix– Rip– Burn

• And then…

Revival

• 2006: Rice University Press returns

Tradition meets technologyContrary to popular belief…• Manuscripts are subjected to rigorous peer

review• Authors must be serious academicians• Work must be stellar• Acceptance by RUP should be a boon to

professors seeking promotion and tenure• But once a manuscript is accepted….

“Digital” publishing• Books are published online, viewable

for free– Multimedia– “Prestige economy”

• A meritocracy in which knowledge and scholarship are the only real currency

– Create. Mix. Rip. Burn. • Those ideas contribute most that are used

most, and in the most ways (Homer, sudoku)

Speaking of Homer…

• Matt Groening:– “Copyright infringement is the sincerest

form of flattery.”

Digital to print

• Connexions’ “secret sauce”– Automatic formatting for print

• RUP books are printed on demand– No costly bets, print overruns, or

inventory management• A production method that makes the

impossible possible

Case in point:

Long Tail Press

• A Rice University Press imprint• Books peer-reviewed and accepted

elsewhere, but too costly to publish• Co-publishing with other university

presses

The “plan”

• 2007-08– Two or three titles per year– Tinker with financial model– Build peer review panels discipline by

discipline– Secure funding

• 2009– Add staff, add titles– Take off in earnest

Summary

• What is RUP really?– Neither a traditional publisher…– …nor a “digital” publisher

• World not ready to do without books• But the printed book, clearly, is waning• Rice, for now, is a bridge between old

and new worlds of “book” publishing

Web sites of interest

• www.ricepress.rice.edu• www.cnx.org• www.qoop.com• http://creativecommons.org/