Publishing books under open access
Last year I signed a contract with the School of Advanced Research Press to publish my book Aboriginal Business: Alliances in a Remote Australian Town (forthcoming winter 2009-yeah). It was a very standard contract and I was happy with it because one of the deciding factors for me going with SAR was their willingness to seek an Australian press to publish the book in Australia in tandem with the US publication. I wanted the book to be more easily available in Australia (and thus less expensive for those purchasing the book there). SAR has worked hard at this, but still we are unclear what our options are. So as this has been unfolding (the back and forth with Australian presses and distributors) I floated an idea to the publisher about a month ago: let me publish a pdf of the final book on my blog for people to download. I argued (as others have) that this would be good for the press, good for me, and good for the circulation of the book (which is what we both want). To their credit, SAR decided to allow this alternative, companion publishing. The letter I received states my author rights clearly:
This letter confirms that you have SAR Press’s permission to post the complete, final pdf of your book, Aboriginal Business: Alliances in a Remote Australian Town, on your blog, after the book has been published and made available for sale. To protect SAR Press’s investment in the print version, we ask you to include the following on your blog, in close proximity to the link for the pdf version:
1. A copyright notice reading “© 2008 School for Advanced Research Press”;
2. A link to your book’s page on our website, with text stating that viewers can purchase the book from SAR Press by clicking on the link.SAR still maintains copyright, but my goal of allowing more distribution is met by facilitating electronic circulation of the final book. By linking to SAR we can track the direct traffic and I can keep track of downloads as well. I believe that most people will still buy the book. In fact, for University courses this is a plus, Professors can check out the book without having to order a desk copy and then decide on the book. Most students will still buy the book–it would still be pretty expensive to print off a 300 page book. It’s a win-win, especially for younger scholars such as myself who have little reputation to go on.
Tags: Aboriginal business, Australia, Kimberly Christen, School of advanced research press
