another thought on junk presses

But the junk press described by Bogost raises an interesting issue. I’ve probably raised it before, but it’s worth mentioning again.

Until just about now, publishers fulfilled two functions for academics. First, they published and distributed your book. Second, they were gatekeepers providing social capital. It was always better to publish with a “good” press, both because their distribution would generally be better (many libraries automatically subscribe to everything from certain publishers, and hence Tool-Being ended up in libraries despite the unknown author simply because a lot of libraries order every Open Court book) and also because you could really strengthen a tenure or promotion case by placing a book at one of the Fat Cat star academic presses. You know the ones I mean.

But let’s say you already have tenure at a job you like. And let’s say you’re Full Professor, well-respected at your institution, and have no intention of leaving. Would there still be reasons to go through laborious review processes at the Fat Cat presses? Maybe so, if you think it would enhance your prestige in professional circles. But personally, assuming that you’ve built up a solid readership for your work, I would think that speed would be the primary consideration. At least it would be for me. (I’m publishing something with OHP that one of the Fat Cats asked me to see. I decided not even to show it to them. Why not? Because they take too long to decide and to print. Sure, their name would look nice on a c.v., and at age 32 it would have felt like a career-making stroke of lightning if they took it. But at this point people can find my work if it’s in their probable area of interest, and it’s more a matter of getting my books out without years of delay after completion. Dating the prom queen is no longer of interest, though it might have been exciting a decade ago. I think others will start to feel this way too once the lightweight presses catch on and build up a track record.)

If we imagine everything being open access ten years from now (not a given, but a solid possibility), a PDF on your website might look as good on a Kindle as a Cambridge University Press book would (just as my pre-teen nephew’s website is about as good as Obama’s). There will be no more need for Publisher Gatekeepers, and different methods of establishing credibility will arise.

It feels like I’ve said these things in a previous post, however, so I’ll leave it at that.