Reduce risks to your publishing program with a strategic review

There is no doubt that the various pressures on the traditional scholarly publishing system are accelerating and are now having a clear impact on a wide variety of publishers. There are a number of pressures on revenues, such as widespread budget issues in libraries, newer “green” funder policies, challenges with growing society memberships and revenue from annual meetings, and the demand for new technology from legacy systems. With that in mind, more and more societies and small publishers are finding that an in-depth strategic review of their organization is a great way to identify areas for improving their short- and long-term financial performance.

Growing cost of publishing

The desire to speed up innovation through the widest possible access to information has driven a number of political and funder initiatives over the years. The initial outcome was a move to the payment of an article processing charge, which then morphed into read and publishing agreements with libraries, which have made it much easier for authors to comply with their funder mandates. A number of funders have implemented “green” policies, whether or not paid for by an APC, and some have advocated for “diamond” journals in which neither the author nor the reader pays for the journal. This funding falls to a society that is publishing for the benefit of its community and covering the costs.  These models, and the inherent need for volume, increase costs that can pose a burden to societies and small publishers.

As a result, smaller publishers and societies are seeing financial challenges, often for the first time in their history. The increase in volume demanded by these models poses problems with peer review, research integrity, and staff and editorial burdens, regardless of whether a society self-publishes or has an arrangement with a commercial publisher. Revenues are flat or declining while costs continue to rise.  This is felt particularly acutely in publishers that have traditionally undertaken many functions in-house.

The challenge of legacy systems

The key challenge that many of these organisations face is how to manage the changes needed. Many publishing systems, for example, have not been updated for many years. Often, systems are not linked seamlessly, leading to costly manual interventions. To achieve a modern automated process for managing content and delivering the speed, efficiency, and quality that authors expect can seem like a huge task. And when the same organizations do not have the in-house expertise to analyse what is needed and then put changes in place, it is difficult to know where to start.

Benefits of a strategic review

Maverick has worked with a number of organizations to bring the expertise and people needed to help. At a high level, we have helped organizations to undertake a forward-looking strategic review to identify strengths and weaknesses. This process requires a hard look at the opportunities for revenue growth and diversification, as well as looking at the processes and systems needed to deliver a modern, cost-effective publishing program. Using our team of experts, we can put together a phased approach based on priorities and resources.

At a more detailed level, we have undertaken a number of more specific, focused reviews.

Journal reviews: Looking at the journal(s) published by the society and reviewing options for either reducing costs or increasing revenue. This often includes a review of their current contracts if they partner with a commercial society. It can also include a detailed analysis of the content being published to ensure that the journal is attracting papers from all of the right places.

Revenue diversification: Societies often have a large volume of content, and we have helped clients look for new ways to monetise this content, either through new products or enhanced services to build membership.

Cost reduction/efficiency: This is an area where we can bring our technical and content teams to help with reviewing workflows and vendor agreements to ensure the society is getting full value for money. We have worked with a wide range of our clients to look at specific pieces of the publishing process, understand where there may be problems and helping to design a more seamless process that delivers speed and quality.

Marketing: One of the key goals for fully open access journals is finding new authors rather than selling subscriptions, so marketing departments have to pivot what they do towards a whole new audience. Both author and member engagement are crucially important, and we have helped develop new strategies to deliver this.

Membership services and communications: As societies see their membership ageing and younger members being less willing to join, they need to rethink their strategy for member categories and member benefits. It is also proving costly to continue to produce and distribute a print member magazine, which was always a core feature of many societies. We have helped a number of societies develop a plan to move this to a new digital communication product.

As a minimum, Maverick recommends focusing on some core activities that will help protect the society and smaller publishers as the market continues to change.

• Know your authors and members and understand what they need from you.

• Ensure effective author outreach to drive submissions.

• Review options for streamlining content processing to reduce costs.

• Find ways to keep up to speed with the use of AI to drive discoverability.

By Jayne Marks