1. Getting the Small
Publisher into the Big Deal
Andrea Powell
Chair, ALPSP
(and Product Development Director,
CABI Publishing)

2. So what’s the problem?
 The Big Deal is a good thing for large
publishers, and for users
 But in the eyes of a consortia, a “small” list
may be anything less than 100 titles, and
may never reach the top of the pile (costly to
negotiate)
 30-40 publishers produce 80% of all journals,
leaving a tail of many thousands
 Recent ALPSP survey showed that 50% of
the journals came from 18% of the
respondents

3. What can be done to help?
 A “parent” publisher or society can offer to
provide consortia services to affiliates
(e.g. American Institute of Physics)
 New entrants can establish a platform
specifically designed for smaller publishers
(e.g. BioOne)
 Journal aggregators can provide sales &
marketing services on top of existing hosting
arrangements (e.g. PCG’s ConsortiaLink)

4. What can be done to help?
 A Trade Association can facilitate a sales &
marketing arrangement on behalf of its
members, acting as go-between, not as a
business partner
(e.g. ALPSP Learned Journals Collection)

5. What is ALPSP?
 The Association of Learned and
Professional Society Publishers
 ‘Shaping the Future of Learned and
Professional Publishing’
 246 members from 27 countries (cf. 129
in 1997)
 Full members (160) are all not-for-profit
publishers

6. The typical ALPSP member
 Small portfolio of journals (3-5 is typical)
 Limited staff resources
 UK-based (but increasingly international)
 Often the publisher of the best quality and
most highly cited titles in their discipline
 Relied upon to generate profits to fund other
Society activities, for the good of the
scholarly community

7. How can ALPSP help?
 By providing information, advice and
support via seminars and the website
 By bringing together a wide range of not-
for-profit publishers to create a critical
mass of journals
 By facilitating access to consortia
through its Learned Journals Collection

8. The ALJC
- how did we get here?
 Seminar on ‘selling to consortia’ in
September 2000
 Internal discussions 2000/1
 Round table discussion (small NFP
publishers) in February 2002
 Round table discussion (librarians) in April
2002
 Member survey late summer 2002
 ICOLC discussions late 2002

9. The ALJC
- how did we get here?
 John Cox Associates appointed late 2002,
delivering report in January 2003
 Meetings held at ALA Midwinter with likely
partner candidates
 Tender document sent out February
 Three proposals received and assessed
by panel
 Interviews and selection made April 2003

10. The ALJC - latest situation
 Swets Blackwell appointed as Business
Partner to handle sales & administration
 Launch meeting held in London, 1st May
 Publicity campaign well under way
 Publishers must sign up by 31st July
 Initial three-year deal, starting with 2004
subscription year
 Aiming for at least 100 titles in year one

11. The ALJC - how will it work?
 Swets to sell content as a single package
or as three subsets:
- medicine & life science
- science & technology
- arts, humanities & business
 SwetsWise gateway will provide single
point of access to all content (but hosting
location is irrelevant)
 E-only deal - print sales are up to the
publisher

12. Revenue sharing algorithm
 Swets to calculate price to customer, and
to distribute net revenue (after their
commission) to publishers
 Revenue to be shared taking into
account:
- previous 3 years’ sales
- number of titles included
- 10% to be shared equally between all

13. Key benefits to participants
 Access to global sales & marketing team
 Discounts for online hosting with
Extenza, if required
 Share of revenue even where there were
no previous sales
 Good reason to join the pre-eminent
international trade association for not-for-
profit publishers!

14. The responses so far...
“While it remains to be seen what the take-
up of the collection will be among
consortia, there can be no doubt how
valuable such a development could be
for a journals market increasingly
dominated by large players. This is just
what trade associations are for.”
- Electronic Publishing Services

15. The responses so far...
“A very welcome development for both
publishers and libraries. The “clumping”
of e-access to titles from the larger
publications and the digital exclusion that
it has generated for the smaller
publishers has been one of the least
welcome side effects of the e-journal
revolution”
- UKSG Serials-eNews

16. The responses so far...
 JISC (Joint Information Services
Committee) keen to negotiate with
ALPSP as one of its 10 key “publishers”
for the next round of NESLI (National
Electronic Site Licence Initiative)
licences (from 2004)

17. The responses so far...
“If the thousands of small publishers that
publish some of the most important
journals are to survive as independent
entities, then they not only need to be
online, they need a route to
market…..Overall the industry will watch
this initiative with interest.”
- Chris Beckett, Scholarly Information Strategies Ltd

18. For more information…
 Visitwww.alpsp-collection.org
 Contact your Swets Blackwell
representative
 Contact Sally Morris, Secretary General
of ALPSP - sec-gen@alpsp.org