follow up on not having control over my own research

Back in December, I wrote a frustrated post about an article I’d submitted to a special issue that was now being repackaged into an edited volume, in which my research would appear as a chapter. At the time, I wrote about how frustrated I was at the lack of control I had over my own research output. I might well have consented to having my work reprinted in this new format, but I was frustrated that my consent was neither sought nor necessary for the process. I concluded that post with a quip that:

I’ll still add this as a new book chapter to my CV, but I’ll hate myself for doing so.

I’m adding that new book chapter to my CV today, and I hate myself for doing so. I also hate the whole dang situation. The book is being sold for $180.00 in print, which seems exorbitant—especially considering that I won’t see a penny (not even a complimentary copy!). Looking back at the original journal issue that this research was published in, though, a reader would have to pay $169.00 to access that, which also makes me want to barf. If they’re only interested in my article, they could purchase that for a cool $53.00, though at that point, they really should just buy the whole Kindle edition of the book version of the issue for $66.99. Sure, DRM sucks, but is conceding to Amazon’s corporate overlordship any worse than the concessions they’d have to make to this academic publishing press that’s charging $50 to access a PDF, not a cent of which is going to the person who wrote the content for it?

I have not paid enough attention to the injustices of the academic publishing ecosystem thus far in my career, and moments like this make me want to start paying more attention. One of my goals for the summer is to make more of my research accessible through my website, even if only through preprints, etc. The status quo sucks, and I want to do more as a tenured professor to challenge it.

• macro
• Work
• publishing
• research
• copyright
• intellectual property
• academic publishing