4 ms·
If publishers play hardball, no researcher will ever work for them as authors, referees or editors. Or they come down to more reasonable prices and perhaps redu
by dmitriz 8y ago
If publishers play hardball, no researcher will ever work for them as authors, referees or editors.
Or they come down to more reasonable prices and perhaps reduce their 40% profits to ones in line with other industries?
- MrGunn 8y agoAgain, Dmitri, there's plenty of reasons to criticize Elsevier without making things up. RELX doesn't break out profit by division, but the operating margin for Elsevier is around 22%, which anyone can read for themselves in their annual report.
- Vinnl 8y agoWhich division has the highest operating margin (and what is that margin)?
- dmitriz 8y agoThe figure of 40% appears in quite a number of sources. Do they all make things up? Does the "operating margin" somehow refute it? Does "operating" here mean 22% after subtracting all additional (possibly luxurious or generously allocated) expenses? No one really wants to criticise anyone and every work should be fairly rewarded. It is the unfair part that people are objecting to.
- posterboy 8y agodid you forget a zero on that figure? Where do the expenses come from if they do not pay editors, reviewers and authors? Is the discount for libraries so big that they can claim a 60% to 80% loss over a fictive idealized price? Also, it's less the price but how the money is (not) redistributed, I thought.