Pull and push styles of publishing

Access to a printing press on my arrival in the UK was a joyful experience as the Shah's censorship in Iran had denied me the chance to use a proper press. Up to that point the best I had been able to use was a duplicating machine that used "stencil" sheets to reproduce pages at a poor quality by turning a handle. As the runs where short, the same publication was read by many people, there was only a small improvement on my school magazine of one copy posted on the school gate. But in the UK I had found a way of having long runs at minimal cost. You could get a copy in the hands of each student at the university.

I took delight in learning about the mechanical process of printing. How the signatures (sections) could be gathered and folded etc; how we could most effectively match plate and paper sizes to reduce the costs. That is why I insist that all new staff at Intellect visit our printers and at least have an idea of the printing process. Sometimes a small change to the number of pages or the size of a publication makes a significant difference in the costings. Thus an uneconomical proposition can turn into a successful project with creativity on the production side.

As I gained confidence and understood the potential of this new technology I began to understand that the notion of what "publishing" was for me was changing. While at school my publication was a single sheet of paper on the wall, here I had many copies of the same material duplicated. Before I had to bring the readers to the place where the magazine was, now I had to take the magazine to where the readers were. While before I had a record of the reader's reactions now I did not.

In today's jargon my school magazine used a "pull" technology while my university magazine used a "push" technology! Pull the audience to your publication or push yours into their hand. This blog and many other web-based publications remind me of my school magazine. As there is one central copy of the publication you can be sloppy with spelling and grammar as you can go back and correct it. You can also go back and see the reactions of the readers who could be bothered to comment. With the printing press you need to get everything right before you duplicate and when people mark their copy of your publication you have no way of seeing that.

Which system do I prefer? I am not sure!

I think it is a good discipline to strive for excellence and try and get it just right before pressing the "publish" button. But I also think it is good to be able to see a trace of the reader's reactions or at least know the pages were most read. There can be a more intimate relationship with the pull technology while a better quality with the push technology. I presume it will be horses for courses at the end.

And what about Apps that can change the content you see depending on your location or your user profile? Well that is another challenge altogether that I am just getting my head around.

Publishing as a passion

When I was at school in Iran there was a tradition of producing a magazine like publication on a large sheet of paper, which was pasted on the wall to be read by the pupils. Despite the fact that neither my handwriting nor my spelling was any good I started producing such a magazine at my school.

I was a thin, shy kid and was not comfortable joining in the conversations in the playground but would pick up the chatter among the other kids to feed into the following week's magazine. I would also recycle some the teachers' more interesting words in the magazine.

I would get a great rush of excitement as my schoolmates awaited for the magazine to be posted on the wall at the start of the week. They would add their own comments and graffiti and I enjoyed the interactive nature of the medium. My poor spelling was corrected by small pieces of paper being pasted with correct spelling over the original. Some times the corrections were corrected! Once I saw a teacher doing the correcting. Another time a teacher told me that if I could not spell properly I should not be doing the school magazine!

By the end of the week the magazine looked nothing like the original sheet I had pasted on the wall at start of the week. For one thing it was thicker in most places and for another it had grown to twice the original size.

I am not sure why this project appealed to me so much at such a young age. Maybe the shyness or maybe because my other hobby was to use the same large sheets of brown paper to make kites which I could sell to rich neighbors. The same table, the same paper, pen and glue was used for both.

The "weekly news" posting in the kitchen at Intellect's Bristol office reminds me of that school project each day.

As the editor of my school magazine I was entered into the national student competition in Tehran. Each team was given a day to produce a magazine with equal amount of resources. My school had not won this competition before as it considered itself focused on academic excellence, journalism was not considered worthy of attention.

When my team came second in that competition that achievement pleased the school and my school fees were waved that year. However, I believed we could have done better with a little more preparation. Instead of reentering the competition the following year I set myself the task of coaching a new team to enter. They won the first place that year with such ease and margin that it surprised everyone.

It became clear to me that I could achieve excellence through supporting others when I may not be able to do it myself. In a strange way I was comfortable with that.

When I arrived in England in 1975 for my university education my first port of call was the office of the student union's magazine office. I explained that although my English was not yet good enough for me to write for the magazine I could at least assist with the layout.

Those were the days when the magazine was laid out on a sheet of paper called the Camera Ready Copy (CRC) using "letterset" typefaces. This was then turned into a metal plate that was used on the printing press in the basement of the student union to produce 8 page sections that were stapled together.

Why are so many books published each year?

Have you ever thought why at a time when people have so little time to read books publishers keep increasing their output?

I think books are being published because more and more people want to write them!

There was a time when there was one book (The Bible) and millions of readers. Then gradually we ended up with more choice of reading material and smaller readership for each publication. However, I feel there has been a fundamental shift of focus from readership to authorship.

When we read other people's writing it allows us to see the world through their perception. In this way we are able to feel what it is like to be the "other" person.

If reading is a window to the world, I think writing is a window to our own soul. When we write we reflect on our own perceptions and are able to feel what it is like to be who we are.

So when the primary purpose of writing is self-realisation then the objective is met through the quality of the understanding reached by the author irrespective of the size of the readership.

The advent of cheaper publishing and distribution methods via the Internet has made the shift of emphases in favour of authorship to be more profound.

The Observer’s retiring literary editor, Robert McCrum on 25 May 2008 wrote that “… while this has been the decade in which millions have found a voice through the internet, only a minority has discovered an audience. Self-expression has been democratised, but books and writers still face that age-old struggle to achieve a readership”.

How international a publisher are you?

Liam Gallimore-Wells sent me the following set of questions and I wish to share my replies with you.

> What are the main qualities / motivations that makes Intellect’s international approach to publishing stand out from other competitors in the market place?

We are an academic publisher of original ideas related to popular culture. The issues we deal with as well as the academic world are international by nature. I doubt if any of our competitors could survive without being open to ideas from other countries. We for sure cannot see any way of doing without it!

> What would be the potential impact on your business without an openness to ideas/ energy / opinions from other countries?

We would not be able to survive as a publisher both economically as well as intellectually.

> What makes being based in Britain special / unique for the purposes of running a successful independent publishing house?

Britain is special as it has a long tradition of tolerance and a long history of international connectedness via the empire and the commonwealth. These connections make it more possible for a publisher of original thinking like us to prosper.

> Are there any drawbacks in terms of attracting / securing new readerships by being a publisher that’s open to printing diverse cross representations of authors’ ideas / thinking? If so, how can these drawbacks be turned into positives?

The main drawback is in marketing terms. If what you publish is new ideas then it is difficult to persuade people to pay for them when there are limited resources at the disposal of academics. Ideally we would like it to be possible to make our books free in order that finance is not a barrier for the dissemination of new ideas. Already in journal publishing the "Open Access" movement is making this idea a possibility by charging the publishing costs to the authors instead of the readers.

> As founder of Intellect, how has your own personal and professional path/journey complimented or informed your culturally inclusive approach to business?

I was born in Iran some fifty years ago, my family migrated to the UK some 30 years ago. It is inevitable that having been welcomed by the culture of British tolerance and inclusivety I would also reflect these qualities in my dealings with others.

Does it help to put “international” in the title of a journal?

A journal does not become such by being called “International journal of X”!

Both European Science Foundation and UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council define a journal as being international when it fits in either Category A or B below.

1) A journal is international (Categories A and B) when the following requirements are fulfilled in addition to those that apply to all journals:

• A genuine, varied and regular international cohort of contributors and readership
• Consistently high-quality scholarly content
• Broad consensus within the field concerning international status and visibility.

2) In addition, they will have some, though not necessarily all, of the following characteristics:

• Active international advisory board
• Open to unsolicited contributions
• Highly discriminating and selective in the choice of articles published
• Published on time and to an agreed schedule

The difference between category ‘A’ and category ‘B’ journals is likely to be the degree to which they conform to 1) above, and both the number of characteristics under 2) to which they conform as well as the degree of conformity. Generally, ‘A’ journals should conform to more of these characteristics, and to a greater extent, than ‘B’ journals.

What quotes need copyright permission?

As a publisher one of the most frequently questions I am asked by authors is:

How long does a quote needs to be before one needs to get copyright holder’s explicit permission for reproduction?

I used to reply 150 words, but I was wrong!

There is no answer that applies to all cases as it very much depends on the context.

The British Academy and The Publishers Association have published a very useful guide for academics to copyright entitled, Guidelines for researchers and publishers in the Humanities and Social Sciences (April 2008) where the following are taken from:

" Section 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act states:

Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of criticism or review, of that or another work or of a performance of a work, does not infringe any copyright in the work provided that it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement.

Some previous publishing industry assumptions, for example that taking up to 400 words is ‘safe’, are now unreliable. So, for example, an extract of 250 words from James Joyce’s Ulysses (less than one thousandth of the entire work) was held to be substantial on the basis of their unique and distinctive quality. Similarly, an extract taken from the musical work ‘Colonel Bogey’, consisting of some 20 bars and lasting only 50 seconds, was held to be a substantial part, because it was that bit of the music which the public would immediately
recognise (the ‘hook’).

Generally speaking, to be fair dealing any excerpt or extract made from a copyright work must not be an appropriation of an entire work or of that part which would represent the substance of the author’s skill and labour.

Lengthy extracts from another work have been allowed in one case where the court was satisfied that the purpose was purely to enable criticism to be made effectively, rather than simply to provide the same information as the original work and to compete with it. In many cases, the effect of good criticism and review is to increase rather than diminish the market for a work.

Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for the purposes of research for a non-commercial purpose does not infringe any copyright in the work provided that it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement (emphasis added)."

Who should cover the costs of publishing?

Traditionally, readers are expected to pay for the production costs of books and magazines. However, in the majority of cases others also contribute. Advertisers are a good source of revenue to the extent that many publications are fully funded by them. In academic publishing ‘open access’ is another way of saying that someone else other than the reader pays.

Many pharmaceutical companies cover the costs of publishing medical research so that doctors have no barriers in accessing results that help to sell their products! But such benefactors are in short supply when it comes to arts and humanities publishing.

If we are honest, the main beneficiary of academic publishing is the author whose ideas are ‘perpetuated’. As such, they should be the ones who contribute to the costs of making publication a success. In practice, there are already resources to support publications based around creative practice.

Unfortunately, most of these funds are wasted on self-indulgent self-publishing. Most artists’ concept of publishing is limited to production of a physical artefact without considering the wider issues of marketing and distribution. They use their limited budgets fully in producing a book based on their own aesthetic sensibilities without considering the potential readers. Most authors are also not aware of ways that the book could be produced using value-for-money formats. Any resources saved by the publisher in production could then be spent on marketing.

A professionally produced academic book benefits from the experience of the publisher in many ways. To begin with, the process of peer review eliminates vanity publishing. Secondly, the publisher acts as a proxy for potential readers, thus making the book more welcoming to the readers instead of being an obscure object of self-indulgence. Most importantly, the publisher places the book in the mainstream of potential readership through its existing contacts.

I acknowledge that many new avenues of self-publishing have emerged via the internet. However, the role of a publisher remains as critical as ever. In this respect I was pleased to read Vint Cerf’s opinion (Media Guardian, 3/12/07) that while blogs and video-sharing websites have opened up new outlets to millions of people around the world at the same time, the appetite for professionally produced content continues to grow.