On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 09:25, Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Sarah
<slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I've never understood how academic publishers
view these issues. I
have friends who had their PhDs published by their university presses
-- at universities financed by taxpayers -- and the prices seemed
self-defeating -- £70 sterling for a relatively short book on a
minority issue. The publishers' argument is that it's a short print
run, so the price per unit has to be high, but the reason they can
only print a small number is they've determined in advance that no one
can afford to buy it.
So it turns into almost vanity publishing, where the only people who
buy the books are extended family and friends, and the occasional
library if you're lucky. In the meantime, the rest of the world is
effectively locked out of this knowledge. It's an odd mindset for
educators to have.
I have bought expensive academic books in the past, but never actual
published PhD theses. I would expect someone to rewrite, extend and
expand on their PhD thesis to make it suitable for a wider readership
before publishing it and expecting people to buy it. Many of the books
I've bought that have been expensive academic ones state that they are
based on, or are an extension of the author(s) PhD work or other
thesis work. I was also under the impression that PhD theses are
printed and bound to go into a library, not really for sale, so I'm
not sure what point is being made here. A PhD thesis and a book are
different things.
Hi, sorry, I meant they had turned the PhD thesis into a book, not
that they simply published the thesis itself.
Sarah