Electronic Publishing:
Why isn’t it cheaper?
Lloyd Alan Fletcher
Information Systems Manager
Institute of Physics Publishing
UKSG Seminar
Bristol, 29th January 2003
[email protected], www.iop.org
Questions to answer
 What costs does e-publishing enable us to
avoid?

What new costs do we incur?

How are cost drivers likely to change in the
future?
Avoidable costs?
ANNUAL COST
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Print only
Editorial & production
e-product support
E-only
e-only production
Infrastructure
Both
Print & distribution
Costs that exist for both print and electronic
 Acquisition, submission
 Peer review process
 Editing, quality control
 Production (e.g., XML file processing)
 About 80 percent of the total publishing costs
E-only production costs
 Online publication (putting the files online)
 Online article quality checking, reference link
checking
After delivery support costs
 Customer account set-up and administration
 Statistics and reports
 Customer and user trouble resolution (first
and some second line support)
System (software) development costs
 One-off build cost in the first place
 Periodic re-design
 One-off archive cost
 Trouble fixing (second and third line support)
 Demand for new features (e.g., z39.50
access, OpenURL, rich export functionality,
searching)
System infrastructure costs
 Internal network
 Data storage
 Internal and online servers
 Bandwidth
 E-publishing platform software
 Technology maintenance (patches,
upgrades, compatibility)
 Hardware & software maintenance contracts
 Performance (application, server, network)
 Research: e.g., new access control methods,
standards compliance, new features
So what will drive down costs?
 Demand for print dwindles
 Declining cost of IT in general
 Economies of scale and scope (e.g.,
common Books and Journals publishing
systems, publishers joining forces)
 Open source (“free”) software: e.g., Linux
operating system
 Driving down cost of software ownership
through better development practises
In conclusion
 Electronic publishing will be cheaper than
print only when print disappears altogether

[email protected]