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The Scholary Monograph: Sales Patterns and Survival Strategies
by David White, Approval Buyer

Editor's note: this article marks 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)

As book buyers at YBP, we are sometimes surprised to read articles in industry journals lamenting the decline of the academic monograph. YBP's steady growth masks the overall industry trend of diminished unit sales per title. Although we have to buy more copies of each university press title each season, that increase in numbers reflects not increased total sales of any given UP title, but a growing YBP customer base which continues to favor university press titles. Over the past ten years, university press unit sales as a percentage of total sales at YBP has actually risen, modestly, from 32% in 1987/88 to 33% in 1997/98.

The Book Industry Study Group's university press data, as published in Book Industry Trends 1997, point to essentially flat figures in the number of university press titles sold to libraries and institutions. (All figures from 1997 onward are projections).

Publishers' Units to Libraries and Institutions (UPs) (Millions of Books)

1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
2.9	2.9	2.9	2.9	2.8	2.8	2.9	3.1	2.9	2.9	3.0

In questioning university presses, we have found that they generally agree that print runs on academic monographs have declined in the past ten years, sometimes by as much as 50%. Reasons for the decline include external factors such as shrinking library budgets for monographic titles, and internal factors, including decreased funding of university presses and a push for them to become more self-sufficient financially.

To compensate, UP's have resorted to a variety of methods for recovering 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.

List price increase:

For YBP's fiscal year 1988/1989, the average list price for a UP title was $35.70, compared to $47.40 for trade and other titles. By our fiscal year 1997/1998, the UP average price had increased 28% to $45.73. Trade, sci/tech and other publishers' list prices increased only 23% over the same period, to $58.46. Some university presses have pushed the rise in average list price ahead of the rise in book production costs, so that fewer copies need to sell for a title to break even.

Publishing more titles:

Title output from the essentially fixed universe of university presses has grown over 25% in the past ten years. The figures below show the number of titles profiled at YBP over that period (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

This marked increase in number of titles published helps explain the increased volume of University Press units sold over the past few years to libraries and all other markets, as corroborated by the Book Industry Study Group's university press unit figures published in Book Industry Trends 1997. (All figures from 1997 onward are projections).

Publishers' Units (UPs) (Millions of Books)

1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
16.6	17.0	17.1	17.9	17.7	17.4	17.8	18.4	19.1	19.8	20.5

Publishing trade titles/more care in which titles are published

University presses have also compensated by either taking more care in which monographs they publish, or in publishing more trade-oriented books.

Susan Conn, Sales and Marketing Director for New York University Press, indicates that, "most books these days have to have bookstore potential as well as strong institutional sales and it's nice if there is some college adoption potential in there, also." In regards to lower print runs, she continues, "I actually wouldn't say that our print runs have gotten lower. We've just refocused on the types of books we've been acquiring to make sure that they can be sold to the trade, as well as libraries."

New York University Press also joins some university presses in distributing other presses in greater numbers, increasing the size of their list without the editorial and production costs. New York has added distribution of Monthly Review Press, Rivers Oram Press and Lawrence & Wishart, all within the last year or two.

Joseph G. Bock, Director of North American Sales for Cambridge University Press, states that "Cambridge University Press will continue monograph publishing as a fundamental category of its publishing program. In view of the severe economic pressures and declining sales of more specialized titles in recent years, Cambridge must be ever more careful in deciding which monographs it publishes."

Indeed, Cambridge has already announced steps to reduce academic monograph output. The February 17, 1999 issue of Subtext quotes Cambridge's publishing development director Richard Fisher as saying "Cambridge University Press will slash its annual output of 400 academic monographs by up to 20% during the next three years. Because of financial constraints, libraries have reduced the number of hardback titles they buy."

As University Presses enter the Twenty-First Century, these strategies will help ensure the survival of the academic monograph. The number of titles produced may have declined, and certain highly specialized titles may have a harder time finding a publisher, but overall the university presses are developing ways to continue publishing the monograph, while also increasing profitability overall.

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