Great idea from the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) for an institutional subsidy for publication of a scholar’s first book: http://www.arl.org/publications-resources/3280-aau-arl-prospectus-for-an-institutionally-funded-first-book-subvention

The rationale in brief is that the market model simply does not work for scholarly monographs. My research on this topic supports this rationale. In recent decades, while a few scholarly journal publishers have benefited from increasing revenues and profits, the average sales for scholarly monographs have plummeted. For details, see my dissertation, chapter 6: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/12537#310

My comment: why just the first book? For scholars in fields where monographs are the norm, why not set aside a reasonable amount (e.g. $10,000) for the first-copy cost to publish a monograph every four years or so?

Cite as: Morrison, H. (2014). Suggestion for institutional subsidy for first book. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2014/06/25/suggestion-for-institutional-subsidy-for-first-book/