Launching A Science Journal, And Living To Tell About It

The urge to start a science journal strikes often—often enough, if stretched out over the course of a year, for one to be launched every working day and most Saturdays as well. In 1987, according to the Institute for Scientific Information’s Current Contents selection staff, at least 302 new science publications first saw the light of day. The staff says “at least” on the presumption that there were some that they didn’t see. Many of these new ventures, of course, come from such giants of science publishing as Pergamon, ier, and so forth. But with careful attention to marketing and a lot of fussing with printers, it is certainly possible for an individual working scientist (like me) to indulge the journal urge and start a publication (like mine, Science Software), keep it alive for a couple of years, and eventually sell it to a big publishing company. Unlikely as it may seem at times, it’s even possible to live to tell the tale (at least I have so far). Science Software came into being in 1984 because the State University of Arizona hired me without a job description. Flush with a sudden windfall of salary money, the school signed me up as an ecologist for its Center for Environmental Studies (I had been a postdoc at UCLA working on boxfish physiology), and only after the hiring did the center say, “Er, ah, develop your own research program, why don’t you, and while you’re working on it, would you help the assistant director with his data?” In consequence, I spent the next 18 months writing Fortran programs to analyze the contents of bird gizzards. At some point during the course of this exercise, it occurred to me that while there might only be five other people in the world interested in gizzard contents, it would save each one of them a lot of time were they to know about the programs I had written. Back then, there was no forum for the efficient exchange of scientific computing information. This leads me to mention my first principle of journal publishing Make sure there’s a market for what you want to publish. I did this by placing “Request for Assistance” notices in the newsletters of some 30 scientific societies, describing a proposed newsletter! journal that would provide articles on scientific computing, software reviews, and information on custom-made programs. This publicity approach had the distinct advantage of being free—and it yielded grand results: Within two months, I received nearly 300 responses to my notice, all wildly enthusiastic. So it’s on to the next principle: Developing a mailing list is as important as developing a sound line-up of articles for your maiden issue. For the science software project, I took the letters responding to my ad to Duncan Patten, director of the Center for Environmental Studies, and said, “I think I’ve got something here; can we spare enough money to print up a descriptive brochure?” Patten gave me $250 for brochures, which I wrote up and sent to the letter writers and to the people on mailing lists of the societies whose publications had produced the most enthusiastic responses to the notice. This effort scraped up enough charter subscriptions, I reckoned, to produce a full-fledged journal. My next principle of publishing: Make sure you have sufficient high-quality material to fill the space you have available. If you don’t intend to write the entire publication, you will have to find other people who can. I gleaned my first set of reviewers and authors from the original set of response letters. I subsequently rounded up other authors at conferences or by contacting writers whose work I had seen in other publications or whose work I learned about via the special-interest forums on the CompuServe electronic information service. The next important principle is: Never tell an author when the deadline really is. Say it’s three weeks earlier. Once the writers have submitted their articles, all of the material must be edited and rendered presentable for the printer and this takes time, a lot of time. In the early days of Science Software, I typed the entire manuscript for each issue on my word processor, cut out the columns and pasted them up by hand, chose type for the cover design, pasted in the footers, page numbers, and masthead, and, in general, put the whole thing together with scissors, paste, and a ruler. Luckily such layout chores can now be accomplished with desktop publishing computer systems. Science Software is currently produced using Xerox Ventura Publisher and a Varillizer typesetting machine. (For discussions of desktop publishing in science, see The Scientist, June 13, page 25.) When the material is pasted together in final form, you then take it to the printer. Another publishing rule: Interview iota of printers, at least four or five, before selecting one. You’ll need to juggle price quotes for the materials (size, weight, and color of paper, type of binding, and so forth) and press run (number of copies to be printed). And you’ll discover that every good idea in selecting materials is also a bad idea. For example glossy, “coated stock” paper may make your publication look better but is considerably more expensive paste, and a ruler. Luckily such layout chores can now be accomplished with desktop publishing computer systems. Science Software is currently produced using Xerox Ventura Publisher and a VariTyper typesetting machine. (For discussions of desktop publishing in science, see The Scientist, June 13, page 25.) While you collect and prepare your material and interview printers, you must also be marketing your publication. That’s one of the unglamorous principles of publishing success: Much as you may want to lose yourself in the intricacies of the articles, which was your whole inspiration to begin with, you must not stop marketing relentlessly. There are numerous ways of doing this, the most popular being by direct mail advertisement and exposure at meetings and conferences. To do direct mail marketing, you need not only the promotional mailing piece, but also a bulk mail permit and possibly a business reply permit (always include a coupon or mail-back card with your promotional mailing; the easier it is for people to respond, the higher the likelihood that they will). By the way, a “good” response rate on direct mail advertising of any kind is 2%; this means that every hundred items you mail out, using general mailing lists, will give two responses—if you’re lucky. Thus we get to the two basic rules of direct mail: First, get the best, that is, the most specific, mailing lists you can (see accompanying story). And second, keep the cost of your promotional pieces as low as possible. I developed very specialized mailing lists, using the names of subscribers to related publications and the names of “inquirers”— people who wrote asking for information about the journal. I generated a list of “inquirers,” by the way, by posting notices in society newsletters and putting out sign-up sheets at computer-oriented conferences. Using these select lists, I was able to get a response rate of between 10% and 20%, and thus get by with fairly small mailings. Showing your publication at conferences or meetings has the advantage of getting it directly into the hands of people who are likely to find it interesting. From certain conferences, I got a very good response in terms of new subscribers. Conference exposure also has the advantage of providing you with immediate feedback from your potential audience on the appearance and content of your publication. Science Software has been supported by paid display advertising as well as by subscriptions. Most scholarly journals and newsletters, however, don’t run display ads; whether you do will depend partly on the image you want your publication to convey—and partly on whether there are any potential advertisers. Fortunately for my physical and mental health, Science Software did well enough so that at the end of two years of publication, seven major publishing houses wanted to acquire it, with John Wiley & Sons, New York, eventually becoming the new publisher. The rest, as they say, is history. Diana Gabaldon is an assistant research professor at the Center for Environmental Studies at Arizona State University. [Ed. note: Science Software is an international quarterly journal for scientists who use computers in their work. It is priced at $45 per year for individuals; $98 per year for librar- ies. Information and sample copies may be obtained by writing to the circulation department of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, NY 10058.]

Launching A Science Journal, And Living To Tell About It

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of