Open Access Publishing in European Networks has released Overview of Open Access Models for eBooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Here's an excerpt from the announcement:
A new survey of Open Access book publishing confirms a wide variety of approaches, as well as a continuing search for the optimal publishing and business models. While Open Access is still in an experimental phase of trying out new models, and tracking the readers’ online and offline preferences to gauge the best way forward, some trends and patterns have started to emerge.
This recently conducted survey of a wide international range of publishing initiatives compares the publishing- and business models they employ, while examining their reasons for engaging in Open Access. The report cites findings from case studies including major academic presses (such as Yale University Press, the MIT Press, the University of California Press), commercial publishers (Bloomsbury Academic), library-press partnerships (the University of Michigan Press), academic led-presses (Open Humanities Press), commercial-academic press ventures, as well as other partnerships, which all offer Open Access to anything from a single title to the entire retro-digitized backlist.
While it is too early to confirm with any certainty which models are the most viable in the long term, it is clear that sustainable long-term business models require a measure of external funding, while cutting costs and creating efficiencies through the use of shared resources, digitized production process and a new range of revenue sources.
