Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!educ-isis!teexdwu
From: teexdwu@ioe.lon.ac.uk (DOMINIK WUJASTYK)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: expensive TeX book
Message-ID: <1990Aug23.101127.22458@ioe.lon.ac.uk>
Date: 23 Aug 90 10:11:27 GMT
References: <8164@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <1990Aug22.222115.936@nmt.edu> <44813@cornell.UUCP>
Reply-To: teexdwu@ioe.lon.ac.uk (DOMINIK WUJASTYK)
Organization: Institute of Education University of London
Lines: 36


In my field, which is Indology, there are several excellent textbooks
produced by Dutch and German publishers that are so outrageously priced
that I feel a thrilling and giddy sense of conquest as I patiently
photocopy them.  I actually feel it is the right thing to do, a way of
striking back at greedy, rapacious publishers. Companies like Brill,
Reidel and Harrassowitz.  Their books are often excellent, important,
and well produced.  But no normal person can afford them, which is a
negation of the very process of scholarship.  Isn't that what Gutenberg
did for us, after all?  Made access to texts cheap and easy?

In the case of Brill, especially, I know that they also refuse to
publish anything unless they get a very substantial subsidy from the
author.  I once offered them a manuscript, and they said they would be
delighted to publish it, but it would need a subsidy; I asked how much
and they said "not much more, but not much less than $10000"!  Several
of my colleagues have had similar experiences.

I'm glad to say that that particular book is being published with
another Dutch firm who does not require a subsidy and who is, moreover,
paying me a royalty on every copy sold.  (But I'm doing the
typesetting, with TeX of course.)

There is obviously something wrong in the publishing world.  I don't know
about the USA or Australia, but in England almost all the famous old
family publishing companies have been gobbled up by vast conglomerates.
There has been quite a bit about it in the papers recently.  The only 
solution to these problems is -- as was mentioned -- for authors to
be firm about the terms of the contracts they sign.  Again in the UK,
the Writers' Guild is happy to assist authors in negotiating their 
contracts, and can provide standard contracts that contain all the main
clauses that one should be worrying about (including copyright etc.)

Authors unite!

Dominik Wujastyk