Open Access Versus Traditional Publishing -- A Survival of the Fittest Business Model Overdue

Note: This post got inspiration from Mayank Bhatt posted in Generally About Books

Open access (includes self-publishing, wired) versus traditional publishing (includes bricks and books). This is obviously all about a survival of the fittest business model that is long overdue. The debate about the perpetual death of traditional publishing has continued since a few decades. This debate continues, with not very clear signs of death as yet. The definition of the terms is more important, here is an extract (although this is not a general example, it is from UMI, just to illustrate the meaning of the respective terms) from Proquest

What is Open Access?
The now-common usage of the term "open access" means freely available for viewing or downloading by anyone with access to the internet. Sometimes a distinction is made for "limited open access" meaning that material is available free of charge to a limited group of authorized users. Our usage of "open access" means the former; that is, dissertations and theses published for Open Access with ProQuest/UMI will be available at no charge for viewing or downloading by anyone with access to the internet, indefinitely.

What is Traditional Publishing?
Traditional publishing at UMI® corresponds with the model that generated the publishing industry as soon as mass-reproduction of printed material was possible. That is, the owner of intellectual property and author of the work contracts with the publisher to reproduce, distribute, and sell copies of the work. The publisher pays the author a certain portion of the revenue thus generated. That is why we also refer to our Traditional Publishing model as the "copy sales and royalty payments" model. It's been our business model since 1938, and we've paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties to the authors of dissertations and theses over the decades.

The following is a review of literature that supports a discussion of pros and cons:

• The Self-Publishing Debate: A Social Scientist Separates Fact from Fiction (Part 3 of 3)

  Is self-publishing an amateurish endeavor, a means of sharing stories, a strategic move in a writing career, or an entrepreneurial activity? To gain insight into this question, I have been analyzing the responses from the nearly 5,000 authors who responded to the 2013 Digital Book World and Writer’s Digest Author Survey in relation to whether an author is aspiring (not yet published), self-published only, traditionally published only, or hybrid (both self-published and traditionally published). In Part 1, I compared the top priorities of these 4 types of authors, and in Part 2, I examined the differences in their stock of published unpublished manuscripts. Now I turn my attention to the differences in their income from their writing.

• Why are publishers the new villain in the digital age? As Amazon tears down the gates around literary culture, even independents are caught in the crossfire, Hero or villain? ... the Amazon warehouse in Milton Keynes. Richard Lea , 22 August 2013 theguardian.com
• Open Source Meets Textbook Publishing - Much Cash Freed Up, By Richard Adhikari, LinuxInsider 08/22/13
• Target reader: Want to publish a book? First use data to figure out who’ll read it,- There are better ways to give readers what they want. Reuters/Adnan Abidi, qz.com By Candy Lee August 21, 2013
• E-book revolution: Breaking through in the digital age, BBC News Aug 21, 2013
• Piracy a Major Threat to Digital Publishing in China, Good E-Reader (blog) by Sovan Mandal, 08/22/13
• Women Dress Like Sex, Men Dress Like Money: Business Marketing Strategy from the World of Love and Sex by Bill Harte
• Book publishing business tries a rewrite, Marketplace.org-Aug 19, 2013
• When Self-Published Ebooks Become Best-Sellers Jeremy Greenfield Forbes
• What Publishing Companies Do in a World Where Anyone Can Publish a Book Jeremy Greenfield Forbes
• When the Self-Published Authors Take Over, What Will Publishers Do? Jeremy Greenfield Forbes
• What Publishers Need To Do In The Era Of Self-Publishing Jeremy Greenfield Forbes
• How Do Literary Agents Fit Into The New Book Publishing Ecosystem? Jeremy Greenfield, Forbes-Aug 2, 2013
• Books aren't dead yet - Salon.com, by Laura Miller - in 121 Google+ circlesMar 21, 2013
• How Do I Decide? Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing (A Field Guide for Authors), Rachelle Gardner
• The next New York: Seattle moves in on the Big Apple to become a ... Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle), Emily Parkhurst Aug 15, 2013
• LIBRARY NEWS: Libraries Dealing with E-book Friction, Carole Howard & Library Staff Pagosa Daily Post 8/9/13
• Book Publishers Scramble to Rewrite Their Future ... - Wired, Mar 19, 2013
• How to Start a Book Publishing Company Plus Business Plan
• Book Publishing for Professionals, Lisa Robinson-Davis Daryl D. Green
• Can Hard Case Crime solve the mystery of digital era publishing ... www.theguardian.com Nov 3, 2010
• Survival of the Fittest, Efficiency is key for printers and manufacturers in soft market by Ginger Curwen, Publishers Weekly Oct 27, 2003