---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 1994 03:20:30 -0500
From: Ken Laws <LAWS@AI.SRI.COM>
Subject: Re: Subversive Proposal

I'll second Stevan Harnad's economic estimate, and his
general philosophy.  I publish a weekly 32KB newsletter.  The
electronic circulation is irrelevant in terms of cost.  I also
send out hardcopy, for which I charge postage and an extra $.25
per week for printing and handling.  (I have _one_ hardcopy
subscriber, but would want to print out a copy for my own use
in any case.  It takes me about half an hour to do the formatting,
as I haven't purchased a good layout program yet.)

Total costs, including advertising and supplies, have been
about $2,000 per year + network access costs (free, in my case)
+ an occasional purchase of computer hardware or software
+ whatever my time is worth.  I've included the cost of
news sources (i.e., subscriptions and professional memberships)
in that $2,000; obviously one could pay much more -- even
millions, for a weekly such as Newsweek.  Harnad's proposal
concerned esoteric publishing, which usually uses free material.
The peer review -- which I omit -- is also free, except for the
correspondence and "shepherding" expenses.

If you don't go after a large readership, there's no advertising
expense.  If you don't edit authors' papers, there's very little
editing expense.  If you use LISTSERV or MajorDomo, there's no
clerical expense.  That's why most net services are free.

Unfortunately, the next level of quality requires at least
one paid professional.  Money must be collected somehow, so either
sponsors must be courted or customers must be billed.  Net commerce
isn't well developed yet, so billing and payment are major hassles.
Clerical help with the billing can add to the cost, so sponsorship
is usually the better option.

I've been advocating self-publication for several years now.
Stevan has always insisted on the need for peer review, whereas
I see it as optional.  Peer review certainly adds an exciting
dynamic to his e-journals, and may help in satisfying sponsors.
Vanity publishing has entirely different benefits.  I expect
that both will do well.  What will not survive is redundant
publishing of slightly varying conference papers, journal articles,
and collected works with delays of 1-3 years.  Publish or perish
has pushed academic publishing to the point of collapse, with
library budgets no longer able to archive everything that any
scientist wants to record for posterity.  That function will now
fall to FTP publishing as Stevan suggests, or possibly to
CD ROM publishing of tech report archives.  Hardcopy publication
will become more reader-driven (reader pulled?) instead of
author/sponsor-driven, and only the highest-quality collections
will appear in print.  For those, editing and publishing costs
will remain high.

                                        -- Ken Laws
                                           Computists' Communique

Dr. Kenneth I. Laws; (415) 493-7390; laws@ai.sri.com.
Ask about my weekly AI/IS/CS online news service.
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