This letter is intended to review the financial matters of the previous year (2002) and to discuss pricing of the American Physical Society (APS) journals for the coming year (2004).
In 2002 the APS published 15,999 manuscripts containing 117,091 pages. This is an increase of 11.29% in the manuscripts published over 2001 and an increase of 13.27% increase in pages published. The numbers for 2002 are somewhat inflated because of a change to recognize that we publish all of our material online when it is ready without waiting for it to appear in print. In light of this fact we added almost an entire month of material (8.3%) by printing the final volume (December) in January after we had a chance to print the last electronically published manuscripts. The average increases over the past 4 years have been 5.5% in manuscripts published and 6.8% in pages published.
The expenses of the Publications enterprise in 2002 were $29,081,000. The net revenue of the operations were $1,493,349, or 5.1% of expenses. In 2001 Publications had a loss of $379,000. The goal of the Publications operations is to run with a net return of 5% to 7% for the next few years to keep the Society journal program healthy. This is especially necessary as the strength of the Society's reserves has been eroded by the recent collapse of equities.
The revenues in 2002 were greatly helped by an unexpected surge in subscriptions to China as that country adjusted to its entry into the World Trade Organization and consequent full honoring of international copyright agreements. The current year, 2003, will be a difficult year because of substantial losses from events surrounding divine/RoweCom. This loss will certainly exceed half of last year's net revenue. Overall subscriptions are also under pressure because of the very difficult financial challenges facing U.S. libraries. It is hoped that continued strength in the growing Pacific Rim market will help soften these pressures.
For 2004 we have assumed that we will have the average drop in our subscription base which has characterized the past few decades. This is expected to be coupled with a growth in manuscripts which also reflects historical trends. The goal is to combine increased economies in operation, with a necessary price increase to operate with a 5% to 7% net return. The loss of subscriptions plus the manuscript growth would give an 8% increase in per subscription costs while normal inflation in costs, including health benefits and salaries, are expected to give another 4.5% to 5.5% increase. We have budgeted to absorb a sufficient fraction of these factors to limit the average journal price increase to 8.7%.
We continue to make slow increases in the differential between the higher tier schools (research universities) and the lower tier schools (primarily colleges). Despite the significant differential introduced when Tier pricing was first used, the reality is that the current difference in prices between tiers (50%) is far short of the difference in the level of journal usage. However, we recognize that many institutions are facing a very difficult year and we have kept price increases for the APS-ALL and PR-ALL packages below 10%. The average price increases for individual journals are kept to the same 8.7% as the packages, but some are scheduled to increase less than the average and some by more than the average. This reflects the different growth amongst the journals. Below is a table of the percentage increases for the APS-ALL and PR-ALL packages for each tier. We also include the differential from the package increases which is assigned to each individual journal if ordered outside the package. We continue to offer access online-only at a 15% to 20% discount from the print + online price.
| 2004 PRICE INCREASES | ||
|---|---|---|
| Average price increase: 8.7% | ||
| PR-ALL & APS-ALL Increases | ||
|
Print & Online |
Online Only |
Tier 1 |
7.50% |
4.50% |
Tier 2 |
9.00% |
4.50% |
Tier 3 |
9.75% |
9.75% |
Tier 4 |
9.75% |
9.75% |
Tier 5 |
9.75% |
9.75% |
| Differentials from Package Increases | |
|---|---|
PRA |
0.0% |
PRB |
-1.0% |
PRC |
2.0% |
PRD |
4.0% |
PRE |
4.0% |
PRL |
-0.5% |
RMP |
-1.0% |
The 2004 Price Chart is available here.