Bookplanet: new publishing model – read book online for free, buy print copy cheap

Rice University Revives Its Press In Digital Model -- by REBECCA BUCKMAN

One of the nation's most prestigious universities is resurrecting its defunct academic press online -- a move that adds a new wrinkle to the debate over who will profit from Web publishing.

Rice University in Houston will today announce plans to relaunch its Rice University Press -- a money-losing venture that went out of business 10 years ago -- under a new all-digital model. Although the new press will solicit and edit manuscripts the old-fashioned way, it won't produce traditional books. The publishing house will instead post works online at a new Web site, where people can read a full copy of the book free. They can also order a regular, bound copy from an on-demand printer, at a cost far less than picking up the book in a store.

"Our overriding mission is to make this scholarship available for free," says Joey King, executive director of Connexions, the Rice Web-publishing platform that will serve as the new press's backbone. The nonprofit Connexions, founded in 1999 by a Rice engineering professor, offers free downloadable educational course materials on everything from electrical engineering to music theory.

Rice's move comes as many book publishers struggle to adapt their business models to the Internet. Some university publishers -- which operate under particularly tough conditions, since many titles appeal only to niche audiences -- have stopped traditional printing altogether in favor of digital, "short-run" printing, says Peter Givler, executive director of the 129-member Association of American University Presses. That means academic publishers can more easily order small quantities of books and not commit to large press runs.

Rice's program, to be launched later this year or early in 2007, could be even more ambitious. The new press plans to publish all of its books online through Connexions, which will essentially absorb the press's editing and transmission costs, says Chuck Henry, a Rice vice-provost who is also the press's new publisher. Readers can freely view the online works under a special online publishing license, though they may be charged a small fee for downloading them to a computer.

Because all books will be in digital form, authors can amend their tomes online, link to multimedia files elsewhere on the Internet, or even chat with readers. Books would never go out of print, and more might be published because of the press's lower cost structure, Rice officials say. Rice officials are also considering asking authors whether they want to allow "derivatives" of their works to be created online. The Connexions site operates under an "open-source" model, letting readers update online course material.

Mr. Henry says a royalty plan for authors is still being worked out, though "they will certainly make money off of this." But he and other university publishers point out that many scholarly authors don't make big profits writing academic tomes. "A good academic book might sell 2,000, maybe 3,000 copies," says Mr. Henry, and publishing costs can be very high. An art-history monograph, for instance, might need to be printed on pricey, high-quality paper so paintings can be reproduced.

Often, university professors who publish though campus presses "get compensated by tenure and promotion," in addition to modest royalties, notes Kate Douglas Torrey, director of the University of North Carolina Press in Chapel Hill. Ms. Torrey's press is still publishing traditional books, but it is launching a pilot project next year with six other publishers to make about two dozen titles available in various formats -- including online and in digital audio -- at the same time they are published in print.

Rice's new press will face challenges. Electronic books have been slow to catch on generally, and some universities that have experimented with the format have found lackluster demand. Stanford University has placed some of its press titles with online-book distributors, but the move hasn't resulted in "a whole lot of new customers for the [books], at least not so far," says Michael Keller, publisher of the Stanford University Press and the university's librarian.

(Write to Rebecca Buckman at rebecca.buckman@wsj.com)