Putting together an anthology or volume of collected works? You might want to check your budget. Reprint fees can can be pretty high. An article from Kant-Studien could run you over $4500. One from Phenomenology & Philosophical Research? Almost double that, though it depends on the particular article.

William Lewis, professor of philosophy at Skidmore College, has been working on putting together an edited volume of works by the late W.A. Suchting, an Australian analytic philosopher of science from the late 20th Century.

His experience has led him to be concerned that books of this type will become rarer and rarer, owing to the high reprint fees publishers are charging.

He writes:

Our original plan was to publish about twenty of his most important articles with a new editorial introduction and in an edition of five hundred or so copies. We have very little budget and we hope to publish with an academic press whose budget is also limited. The articles in question appeared in journals like Kant-Studien, Science & Education, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, BJHP and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. While some of these journals were independent at the time when his articles were published, the rights to most articles are now controlled and managed by Springer, Elsevier, De Gruyter, Blackwell, Oxford, etc.

As little as ten years ago, it was possible to write to (human) editors at most of these presses, even the big ones, and negotiate reasonable and often free republication rights. This is now impossible: such editors no longer exist and one is referred to either in-house or third-party automated systems who spit out a price—often exorbitant—for republication based on one’s inputs.

Professor Lewis shared the quoted reprinting costs for the articles planned for inclusion in the volume. The most expensive, at $8979.50, is an article from Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, published by Elsevier. Next is an article from Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, published by Wiley, for $8913.50. That’s followed by $4579.50 for an article from Kant-Studien and $1251.50 for one from Analyse & Kritik, both published by DeGruyter. Many of the others were around $600.

He continues:

What I’m wondering is the following (and I’m hoping Daily Nous readers can help). One, is there a possible way to negotiate these fees so as to make volumes like this possible? Two, if it is necessary to pay these extortionate fess, how have folks managed to do so?

Much of my philosophical education came from buying books with titles like Philosopher X, Selected Writings or The Philosopher Y Reader. Are we to lose these resources in this new rent-seeking age of academic publishers?

Your advice and comments welcome.

The post Reprint Fees: Higher than You Thought first appeared on Daily Nous.