Book: British Infantry Battalion Commanders in the First World War

[Derek Black]

On 20/06/2016 at 11:32, David Filsell said:

 

That stated, there is no doubt that this is an important book.

Missing a word there David?

I enjoyed the video presentation, i'll read the thesis if i get the chance.

 

Cheers.

[Gibbo]

Ashgate is an academic publisher some of whose books are about military history.

 

Helion is a military history publisher some of whose books are academic.

 

There are three possible explanations for Ashgate's pricing policy:

 

1. It does not understand that the market for academic military history is much larger than that for other academic books.

 

2. It fears that if it cut the prices of its military histories university libraries would demand that it cuts the prices of its other books, which would not enjoy enough of an increase in sales to remain profitable.

 

3. It has a profitable business model selling small quantities of expensive books to academic librarians who are using other people's money and feels that switching to one of trying to sell larger quantities of cheaper books to people using their own money is too risky.

 

Whilst writing my PhD I attended a seminar by a publisher on publishing your thesis. She insisted that having the thesis freely available online was not a bar to publishing it. Many of the audience were clearly sceptical about this point but Helion, who are publishing the book of my thesis, had no problem with the thesis being freely available online. The arguments are that many people want a physical book and it is necessary to make significant changes in order to convert a thesis into a book.

[David Filsell]

Gibbo,

Don't disagree with any of that - but Helion seems to manage pretty well with a sensible pricing policy and effective marketing.

I attempted to speak to Ashgate  yesterday and was put through to the former head of marketing for the military series. The company has been taken over by an American Company and she is no longer working on military titles so I asked her to put me in touch with the new person handling the series. However Basically she told me that it was a top down decision company in which no one at here level had, or could offer, any input which would influence pricing/marketing decisions. I gave her my number - needless to say they have not called me back. Surprise. Surprise. So if they continue to send me review copies I will keep battering away at them.

Regards

David

[bootneck]

It is worth pointing out that Ashgate Publishing were taken over by the Francis & Taylor Publishing Group last year and their books now appear under the Routledge imprint. Many of the books published by the group cost around that charged by many academic and specialised book publishers.

Bootneck

[David Filsell]

Almost correct - howevert they are still currently published under the Ashgate Publishing Limited imprint and the series remains  Ashgate Studies in First War Military History. My entire point is that most books published by academic publishers are grossly overpriced, extremely poorly marketed and that Helion manage to see the opportunities. That's all 

[rob carman]

My pet unit's coverage in the book is/was available as a free online sample but the equivalent material in the thesis is more detailed and better referenced. 

 

Thanks for the link.

 

Rob.

[bootneck]

David

Having just looked at the series on the Routledge website I see that it has already been rebranded as the Routledge Studies in First World War Military History, although some of the series are still illustrated with images showing the Ashgate logo.

 

My major area of interest is Britain at War in the long 18th century and I have extremely specialised interests within this so to me £60-75 per volume from most academic publishers appears quite normal. You do tend to notice that some academic institutions appear to have understandings with certain publishers. Perhaps the whole question of pricing, marketing and the various types of publisher should be opened as a new thread?

 

Bootneck