What does the fox say? Caroline Sutton Publisher/Co-Founder Co-action Publishing COASP 2013, Sept. 2013, Riga

A bit about Co-Action Publishing  Established as Swedish limited liability company in 2007 by three former executives from academic publishing industry  Affiliate office in Norway  Founding Member Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, OASPA, current President  Publish journals across disciplines, including Social Sciences and the Humanities, but primarily medicine  7 employees; publishing 36 journals  Business philosophy & culture based on Swedish values

Copernicus PLoS BMC Hindawi Publishing Scientific Publishing MedKnow

Few competitors ◦Branding important but less important than today. ◦Simply being an OA publisher was distinctive.

On the other hand, communications were very important. In the form of advocacy (education)  Focused primarily on defining things like green vs. Gold OA. Dispelling myths and correcting inaccurate or false information.  To build a market.  Very useful to cooperate with other publishers and to point to their good work. – OASPA!

 Established OA publishers  New pure OA publishers  Mega journals and mega projects  University library hosting and publishing services  Small OA publishers  Legacy publishers with OA portfolios

Having a branding and communication strategy is now critical.  Differentiation  Clearly define services  Define Open Access at our company  Price justification

”…a point publishers should be aware of in the coming Open Access era where individuals, not institutions, will control economic decision making power in the form of Article Processing Charges (APC). Authors will increasingly demand real service for their APCs, like any other product that you pay for as a lab manager. Publishers who do not deliver a good “product” in terms of doing their job in handling manuscripts, typesetting, hosting, etc. will find that they are now in a competitive market and authors who don’t get a good service will take their money elsewhere.”

For Co-Action Publishing advocacy work is still important as part of that strategy  In relation to social sciences & humanities  In relation to societies  To define nuances in Open Access publishing (e.g. Licensing)  To build support for different payment models  As part of positioning company

Also small publishers must be aware of current discourse and be prepared to respond to claims and actions of others.  Align with loud voices where/when we agree with them.  Engage locally where we can have a loud voice.  Think creatively to embrace small  And embrace being a pure OA publisher

Thank you!