The Scholarly Monograph: Sales Patterns Revisited
by David White, Customer Service Bibliographer
In the Spring 1999 issue of YBP's Trialogue, I wrote an article entitled: "The Scholarly Monograph: Sales Patterns and Survival Strategies". The article was the third in a series of Trialogue articles on the fate of the scholarly monograph. ("The Specialized Scholarly Monograph: At the Crossroads of Redefining Scholarship and Scholarly Publishing" (Trialogue Fall 1997) and "W(h)ither the Scholarly Monograph" (Trialogue Fall 1997))
The article focused on how university presses were coping with the oft-reported decline in scholarly publishing evident in the 1990s, by examining how they were addressing the loss of revenue from fewer unit sales per title.
In 1999, university presses told us that print runs on academic monographs had been declining in the previous 10 years, sometimes by as much as 50%. Reasons given for the decline included shrinking library budgets for monographic titles, decreased funding of university presses, and a push for them to become more self-sufficient financially.
To compensate, UPs were taking several steps to recover their lost revenue - increasing list prices, publishing more titles, being more careful in selecting the monographs they publish, and publishing a select number of "trade" titles.
Have these steps achieved their intended purpose? I decided to use YBP sales data to take another look.
List price increase:
From YBP's fiscal year 1988/1989 to 1997/1998, the average list price for a UP title rose from $35.70 to $45.73, a raise of 28%. Trade, sci/tech and other publishers' list prices for the same period rose only 23% ($47.40 to $58.46). UP publishers were pricing scholarly monographs higher to enable them to break even or make a profit selling fewer copies. The increase in average list price for UP titles from 1997/1998 to 2002/2003 is only 5.8%, comparing favorably with the 5.1% increase in trade, sci/tech and other publishers. The large price increases seen in the previous 10 year period seem to have either had the desired effect of stabilizing profit levels, or those price increases have reached the top of what the market will bear.
Publishing more titles:
Another way that university presses were dealing with the loss of revenue was by publishing more titles. Title output from the essentially fixed universe of university presses grew over 36% from 1998/1989 to 1997/1998. From 1997/1998 to 2002/2003 that same output grew by another 24%, indicating that UPs are continuing to grow their title output.
The figures below show the number of UP titles profiled at YBP from 1988/1989 to 2002/2003 (YBP profiles all titles from university presses).
88/89
6517
89/90
6934
90/91
7429
91/92
7927
92/93
8139
93/94
8033
94/95
8859
95/96
8788
96/97
9312
97/98
8917
98/99
10206
99/00
9989
00/01
10130
01/02
9678
02/03
11050
In 1989, Susan Conn of the New York University Press told us that most of their books needed bookstore potential as well as strong institutional sales. They and other UPs were finding themselves forced to publish books with a wider potential market. Today, while trade market potential is certainly not being ignored, many UPs are moving back to a more traditional title list.
Mark Saunders, Assistant Director of Marketing and Sales for the University of Virginia Press tells us:
"Our fall [2004] list…is much stronger in scholarly titles than in trade. While this doesn't reflect a retreat from doing trade titles, it is fair to say that the weak economy and the concurrent changes in the trade marketplace have compelled university presses to take stock and focus on core titles and markets that offer the best margins, including the hardcover library and the regional trade book."
Saunders continues, "Gone are the trade books that have no foundation in our traditional scholarly disciplines. Slots on our list are too precious these days to give us books that don't fulfill our essential mission."
The "crisis" of the academic monograph is certainly far from over. In 2002 the MLA Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of Scholarly Publishing presented a paper on "The Future of Scholarly Publishing", and booksellers, publishers and librarians continue to watch how things shake out.
There seems to be some good news, however. Average list prices have certainly stabilized over the past five years - especially when compared to the huge growth in the 1990s. And university presses seem to be moving back to a tighter, more academic list - not ignoring the possibility of trade tie-ins, but not focusing on that as much either.
The fate of the scholarly monograph will no doubt be an area of interest for some time.
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