Trade publishing measures a book by its first twelve weeks. Academic publishing cannot afford to, because the research book that matters in year seven often sold modestly in year one.
Print-on-demand changed the arithmetic
Keeping a title in print used to mean warehousing stock against uncertain demand. It no longer does. A book that sells forty copies a year is now worth keeping, and forty copies a year to the right forty readers is exactly what a specialist monograph should do.
Citation has a long tail
We looked at our own research list and found the median monograph reaches peak citation in its fifth year. A publisher who lets titles lapse at three years is discarding books precisely as they become useful.
