OA Books

Open access, books and sales…what’s the story?

Most open access growth has been in the field of research journal articles, but open access to books is growing. Although many researchers might be concerned that OA will reduce sales and royalties if books are made open access, the evidence so far shows that publisher profits continue to increase, with some findings showing increases in sales for individual print books after free digital release. Authors releasing books as free and openly accessible may also benefit by increasing the visibility and impact of their work, and their reputation.

Gray, E. and Associates. (2004). Digital Publishing and Open Access for Social Science Research Dissemination. http://www.codesria.org/IMG/pdf/Eve-Gray.pdf

Hilton III, J. & Wiley, D. (2010). The Short-Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books on Print Sales. The Journal of Electronic Publishing,13(1). http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jep;view=text;rgn=main;idno=3336451.0013.101

Snijder, R. (2010). The profits of free books: An experiment to measure the impact of open access publishing. Learned Publishing, 23(4), 293-301. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/alpsp/lp/2010/00000023/00000004/art00003

Steele, C. (2006). Book to the future: 21st Century models for the scholarly monograph. Charleston Conference on Issues in Books and Serial Acquisition. http://dspace-prod1.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/43261

Travis, H. (2010). Estimating the Economic Impact of Mass Digitization Projects on Copyright Holders: Evidence from the Google Book Search Litigation. Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA, Vol. 57. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1634126

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