02. Key resources and sources

There are number of existing resources that provide insights about how to start and/or run an Open Access publisher, covering different areas of the publishing workflow. As part of our own aim is to provide a 'guide of guides', these resources are summarised below. As we refer to these resources across the Toolkit, we have assigned each a shortened title. In this section, we also describe some additional sources we have used in preparing our own resource.

Cookbook for Open Access Books

Nordhoff, Sebastian (2018). Cookbook for Open Access Books. Berlin: Language Science Press. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1286925

Nordhoff, Sebastian (2018). Language Science Press Business Model. Berlin: Language Science Press. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1286972 

This resource comprises two connected texts, both written by the founder and director of Language Science Press Sebastian Nordhoff. The first text (Cookbook) is an Open Access book in its own right, aimed at academics who would like to set up a press and want to learn more about business models, accounting, marketing, and other business operations. 

With extensive detail, the guide focuses on the Open Access publisher’s workflow and day-to-day operations. The guide addresses issues such as editorial and production workflows, marketing and distribution as well as handling relationships with authors, reviewers, and the whole academic community, and, in the case of university presses or New University Presses, with the university that is the sponsor. At the heart of the guide is an account of how Language Science Press (LSP) was set up in a period spanning 2012 to 2018. Though parts of the guide are based on the German context, much of the advice is applicable to presses in many different contexts and academic cultures. It remains one of the most comprehensive guides on best practice in OA book publishing. 

Cookbook is accompanied by the LSP Business Model document that details LSP’s own business model, again in considerable detail, for the benefit of others. It includes LSP’s business data and a 5-year spreadsheet that can be used by prospective publishers to calculate revenue/cost projections. The LSP Business Model has an interesting format in which initial assumptions and projections are juxtaposed with the actual outcomes, which not only provides valuable insight into the practical realities of establishing a new publisher but is also helpful for evaluating the entire business strategy of the press. 

New University Press Toolkit

Jisc (2021). New University Press Toolkit. https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/new-university-press-toolkit

This toolkit provides guidance for running New University Presses with a special focus on launching a press, but it is also useful for hybrid academic presses wanting to increase their OA output and presses with different degrees of maturity. Because Jisc’s remit relates to the UK academic landscape, the kit is primarily aimed at UK institutions and centres on UK policies although it will be expanded in the future to present best international practices and case studies. 

The guide tackles a wide variety of areas relevant to running an OA book press. Key questions that the kit tackles include how to start a press, how to achieve sustainability, how to re-evaluate goals and workflows after the initial five years, and how to support authors. A real strength of the kit is the practical advice, detailed examples of best practice and an extremely rich bibliography, which provides a potentially useful additional resource for the new publisher.  The kit covers journals and books; other publication formats will be included over time.

Revenue Models for Open Access Monographs

Izabella Penier, Martin Eve and Tom Grady (2020). COPIM: Revenue Models for Open Access Monographs. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4455511

COPIM’s report on revenue models provides smaller/scholar-led publishers with a useful set of resources for diversifying revenue streams to support the publication of OA books. It explores solutions adopted by different presses in multiple locations. The report examines academic monograph publishing in the context of today’s challenging monograph publishing environment: from Covid-19 and budget cuts, to print sales, funder mandates, and research evaluation. For each model in the report, there is a short description followed by examples of implementation and a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis.

Business Models for Open Access Books

Lucy Barnes and François van Schalkwyk (2022). Business Models for Open Access Books. https://oabooksbusinessmodels.pubpub.org 

Business Models for OA Books is a second key resource on business models, and provides the reader with valuable information. It is not a single document, but a series of case studies about presses, who discuss the diverse ways in which they have structured their work, loosely following a pre-circulated template. The publishers represented in the 14 case studies are punctum books, Mattering Press, African Minds, Open Book Publishers, Lever Press, Amherst College Press, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts Press, Stockholm University Press, Open Press TiU, meson press, Language Science Press, Helsinki University Press, Finnish Literature Society, and FF Open Press. One of the distinct features of the resource is that its case studies are from different parts of the world, describing how presses respond to diverse national and institutional contexts. The intention is to, in future, expand the range of case studies. Publishers can submit their case study for inclusion by providing information following a template. 

Governing Scholar-Led OA Book Publishers

Judith Fathallah (2023). Governing Scholar-Led OA Book Publishers: Values, Practices, Barriers. Community-Led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs. COPIM. https://doi.org/10.21428/785a6451.e6fcb523

This report, created for Work Package 4 of the COPIM project, explores the processes by which six small scholar-led publishers (members of the ScholarLed Consortium) govern their initiatives. It includes an exploration of the theoretical and practical issues involved in governing a small OA press and six interviews with publishers. Its particular usefulness for small and scholar-led presses is how it documents some of the real practical struggles experienced by smaller Open Access publishers and how these were addressed, as well as the resources, links to templates and guidance specific to governance it provides.

Jisc Interviews

Janneke Adema (2017). Interview transcriptions: Changing Publishing Ecologies. A Landscape Study of New University Presses and Academic-led Publishing. https://repository.jisc.ac.uk/6652/

This is a key source for this Toolkit, but may also be useful as a resource. In 2017, Jisc published Changing Publishing Ecologies. A Landscape Study of New University Presses and Academic-led Publishing, a report co-authored by Janneke Adema and Graham Stone. This report itself is useful in describing the relevant publishing context for smaller and scholar-led presses. For the purposes of compiling this resource, the archived interview transcripts have been particularly useful, as they include information about the practicalities of running a small/academic-led press.

OAPEN Toolkit

OAPEN (2023). OA Books Toolkit. https://oabooks-toolkit.org/

This toolkit is aimed at authors more than publishers but nonetheless constitutes an important resource for publishers, including issues such as dispelling myths about Open Access and different licenses, as well as the full publication lifecycle.

Radical Open Access Collective

https://radicaloa.disruptivemedia.org.uk/resources/ The Radical Open Access Collective is a community of scholar-led, not-for-profit presses, journals and other Open Access projects. The website of the collective contains information and resources on funding and publication opportunities for OA books, OA publishing tools, diversity, ethics and publishing standards, collaborative marketing and events as well as radical Open Acess literature.

Radical Open Access Collective

Radical Open Access Collective Information Portal. https://radicaloa.disruptivemedia.org.uk/resources/

The Radical Open Access Collective is a community of scholar-led, not-for-profit presses, journals and other Open Access projects. The website of the collective has an Information Portal, which includes information and resources on funding and publication opportunities for Open Access books, Open Access publishing tools, diversity, ethics and publishing standards, collaborative marketing and events as well as Open Access literature relevant to the aims of the Collective.