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Publishing in the knowledge economy
The industry today
CHAPTER
6
Journal publishing
6.1 Revenues and costs
Very little authoritative data is available on the
revenues or costs of journal publishers. The
Publishers Association and the Association of
Learned and Professional Society Publishers
(ALPSP) have commissioned a number of
surveys, which are referred to here, but these
have been hampered by high non-response
rates, especially on the part of the largest
publishers. The surveys, carried out in 2000
and 2001 for the PA and ALPSP by TFPL,
found that there was little overlap between the
respondents in both years, so they took the
decision to combine the data together, which
is shown below in table 6.1. Some data was
published by the Competition Commission in its
report on the Reed-Elsevier/Harcourt merger in
2001, which is also drawn on in this section.
Data from the Publishers’ Association shows
a healthy growth in worldwide revenues to UKbased
publishers (Figure 6.1).
The data from the surveys carried out by
TFPL for ALPSP and the PA shows the extreme
ranges of annual sales and number of titles
produced (Table 6.2). Sales data includes
revenue from subscriptions, licences,
advertising and any other source generated
directly by publication of the titles.
It also shows how internationalised the journal
market is, with total sales being far in excess of
UK sales. The survey also shows the
importance of electronic journals: 91 out of 169
publishers together produced over 1940 titles
electronically. In 1999, the number of titles
(based on 63 out of 96 respondents) was 1200.
58 of the respondents publish all their journals
in electronic form (Table 6.3).
Typical revenue and costs for an STM and
humanities/social science journal were supplied
to the Competition Commission by Journal
Publishing, but with the caveat that these vary
very widely from journal to journal, depending
on circulation (scale economies), subject matter
and ability to attract advertising. This shows
some significant differences between STM and
humanities/social science.
Figure 6.1 Journal revenues, £m
Revenues received by UK publishers from worldwide subscriptions to
their UK-based journals (excluding advertising, licensing, etc)
500
400
300
200
100
1997
Source Publishers Association
1998
1999
Table 6.1 Journal publishing indicators,
1999-2000, based on 169 respondents
Total sales, £m 554.3
Median turnover, £ 205,968
Range of annual sales
Minimum, £ 1,800
Maximum, £m 111.9
Number of titles produced
Total 2769
Median per publisher 3
Range 1-650
Table 6.2 UK sales, based on 167 publishers
Total UK sales, £m 190.6
Median turnover, £ 70,000
Range of annual UK sales
Minimum, £ 200
Maximum, £m 67
Source TFPL for ALPSP and PA
Table 6.3 Electronic journal publishing
No. of publishers producing electronic journals 91
No. of titles produced electronically 1940
Source TFPL for ALPSP and PA
36