These slides are from the AAUP Monograph Costing Tool Webinar, held Thursday, July 28, 2016. The upcoming tool was developed by Nancy Maron and Kim Schmelzinger and adapted from their methodology in ITHAKA S+R's study, "The Cost of Publishing Monographs."

1. DIGITAL MONOGRAPH
COST BUILDER
INTRODUCTION & DEMO
Nancy Maron, BlueSky to BluePrint
Kim Schmelzinger, MeanLine Publisher Services
Demo - Webinar
July 28, 2016

2. TODAY’S WEBINAR WILL…
 Offer a short overview of the aims of this project
 Provide a demo of the tool, including
 The “quick start” method, and
 A more detailed approach
 Suggest applications and next steps

3. OVERVIEW

4. THE COSTS OF PUBLISHING MONOGRAPHS
(2016)
 A study of 20 presses, 20 titles each
 Onsite visits to gather staff-level
data
 Data on all stages of the publishing
process… including staff, direct and
overheads.
 Conducted by Ithaka S+R, with
generous support from The Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation.
Available at: http://www.sr.ithaka.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SR_Report_Costs_Publishing_Monographs020516.pdf And at
http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0019.103

5. WE SHOWED AVERAGES… AND COST
DEFINITIONS

6. WHAT TO KEEP AND WHAT TO CHANGE?
What presses loved…
 Knowing range of costs
 Seeing costs, particularly staff time,
broken out by department and activity
 Staff-level discussions about process,
obstacles, and perceived value were
very revealing and useful for both
directors and staff
and didn’t
 Too complicated at the staff level :
 Staff found the questions difficult
and some more comfortable
estimating than others
 Time consuming to engage staffers
in 5 key departments

7. NEW P+L TOOL…
• Mellon-funded project with AAUP to create a simple
tool so that presses can determine cost per book for
themselves
• Offers clear, easy-to-digest outputs to help presses
make use of this data
• Provides options: business managers can complete
with or without staff participation.

8. GATHERING THE DATA
 Lots of questions
 Staff completed sheets, on
paper, Excel, etc…
 Output difficult to visually
interpret
 20 titles, strict definition of
“monograph”
ORIGINAL STUDY
 Fewer questions
 Staff or Business Manager
may complete
 Results will be clearly
displayed
 10 or fewer titles; press can
establish its own definition,
based on the data they
require
NOW

9. TWO FINAL OUTPUTS
 Synthesis of data captured
at staff, departmental, and
press level
 Snapshot of average costs
 Visualizations of key
measures
DASHBOARD
 A per-title cost estimate
template
 Useful when seeking subsidy
 Should be easy to read,
transparent, and clear to
those not necessarily in
publishing
COST STATEMENT

10. THE TOOL ENCOURAGES PRESSES TO
UNDERSTAND
 Staff time
 Direct (book-specific) expenses
 Department overheads
 Press-level overheads
 In-kind costs

11. IT DOES NOT INCLUDE
• Time from staff who work on
no monographs
• Costs related to print only
• Paper
• Printing
• Warehouse, shipping
• Costs related to sales
• Royalties
• Commissions

12. DATA GATHERING WILL INVOLVE
• Director
• Business manager or CFO
• And, to the extent that you desire, staff
in key departments
• Though the “timesaver” option allows
you to handle the staff costs centrally,
without needing to consult directly with
staff.

13. Acquisitions
Manuscript
Editorial Design Production Marketing
Sales,
Distribution
Copyediting
Proofreading
Project
management
Permissions mgmt.
File pre-processing
Indexing
Copyright
registration
Cataloguing
Author support
Selection process
Conferences
Peer Review
Publication Board
MS Development
Author support
Display markup &
composition
Interior Design
Illus. preparation
Suppl. materials
prep
Cover design &
Image permissions
Author support
Digital file prep
Digital asset mgmt.
File conversion
File distribution
File preservation
Author support
Catalog preparation
Advertising
Publicity
Catalog and jacket
copywriting
Website, e-marketing
Title-specific e-
marketing
Social media
Discovery metadata
Review copy admin
Awards admin
Conferences, exhibits
Direct Mail (print/
Email)
Author support
THE APPROACH FOCUSES ON CERTAIN KEY
PUBLISHING FUNCTIONS

14. THE DEMO

15. TO GET STARTED…
• SOME KEY IDEAS
• WALK-THROUGH EXAMPLE
• THEN, the “TIME SAVER” version

16. THIS COSTING TOOL…
• Can gather data on up to 10 titles
• Works best in sequence; this will help
make sure to avoid any double-counting.
(Each tab is numbered.)
• Makes use of standard AAUP Statistics
terminology and formatting, wherever
possible
• Color coding tells you which fields to enter
and where you can copy/paste to save
time

17. YOU WILL NEED TO…
1. CHOOSE YOUR TITLES!
2. ADD GENERAL PRESS INFORMATION
3. MIX IN SOME PRESS-WIDE G&A
4. STIR IN THE TITLE-SPECIFIC EXPENSES
5. FOLD IN DEPARTMENTAL EXPENSES
6. AND ADD STAFF SALARIES AND TIME

18. 1. CHOOSE YOUR TITLES
?
Will you use the
same
“monograph”
definition?
What year will you
focus on?

19. 2. ADD GENERAL PRESS
INFORMATION
Tip:
Most important is
to include total
number of books
and total number
of monographs
published in the
target year

20. 3. PRESS-WIDE G&A (GENERAL & ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS)
Tip:
When considering cost for the
director, ask if that person also
does editorial work. (To avoid
double-counting, either include
time here OR on the staff page, not
both)

22. From the AAUP
Stats:

23. 4. DIRECT COSTS
Tip:
Fill out as much as you can on a
per-title basis. Can you estimate
conference expense per title?
Advertising? Great! Put that here.
Anything that you just cannot
include as an accurate title-level
expense should go (in the
aggregate) on the departmental
tab. But always try to come up with
a good title-level figure first.

25. 5. DEPARTMENTAL EXPENSES (IN THE
AGGREGATE)
Tip:
Think of this as “departmental overhead”
and only include those things that need to
be counted – T+E, for example – but are
not possible to break out at the title level.
The total “departmental” costs will be
added to the Press-Wide G+A to arrive at
the “overhead” allocation.
If you can arrive at a title-level allocation,
use that instead and leave the line here
blank.

27. 6. STAFF SALARIES AND
TIME
Tip:
Meet with staff to talk about work processes
BEFORE asking them to think about their
time.
It will help to have a list of all monographs
published in that year available to consult
Reassure staff that estimating is OK!
(If they don’t, someone will be doing it for
them.)
Books that
Are Not
Monographs
30%
General
Admin
Tasks
19%
Monographs
51%
How Much Time Do You Spend o
Monographs?How Much Time Do Yo

28. WHEN MEETING WITH STAFF…
• We held meetings with 3 groups: Acquisitions, EDP,
and Marketing
• The sessions started with a discussion:
• How do you do your work?
• What can happen in the process that ends up driving costs?
• What aspects of your work do you feel are the most valuable to
the final quality of the work?
• Then, with those ideas in mind, we started answering
some questions.

29. TWO SOMEWHAT DIFFICULT QUESTIONS
• How would you say you typically spend your time in a
given week?
• Monographs
• Journals, trade, textbooks, or other publishing
• General office work
• Thinking ONLY about MONOGRAPHS, how much time
do you typically spend on books that are
• Publishing that same year
• Already published (backlist)
• Will publish in future years
• Will never be published

30. WHEN THINKING ABOUT TIME…
• Share a clear definition of the “population” of books
you are assessing. Share lists of the included titles for
staff to review.
• Encourage staff to discuss the time estimates together.
Within a department, this can help the group to
calibrate their responses.
• Have staff write down their estimates in the meeting;
they can be revised later as needed.
• With laptop in hand, the business manager can enter
estimates in real time into the “STAFF_ALL” sheet.

31. 6. STAFF SALARIES AND TIME – EFFORT SPENT BY
BOOK
Books that
Are Not
Monographs
30%
General
Admin
Tasks
19%
Monographs
51%
How Much Time Do You Spend o
Monographs?How Much Time Do Yo
Tip:
Have staff consider how much time
each book took, relative to a “typical”
book. The spreadsheet will calculate
the percentages

32. Books that
Are Not
Monographs
30%
General
Admin
Tasks
19%
Monographs
51%
How Much Time Do You Spend o
Monographs?How Much Time Do Yo
This title took less time than the “normal” or “average title
This title took a “normal” or “average” amount of time
This title took more time than the “normal” or “average” title
6. STAFF SALARIES AND TIME – EFFORT SPENT BY
BOOK

33. 6. STAFF SALARIES AND TIME – EFFORT SPENT BY
ACTIVITY
Tip:
Staffers can indicate ANY activities
they participate in.
All numbers must add to 100%

34. TIMESAVER METHOD!
This method is similar, but with one key exception:
Staffers do not come up with their own estimates
Just the CFO or other knowledgeable person
will develop and enter the data
And we’ll skip a step or two.

35. 34
NOW… CHOOSE A METHOD OF ALLOCATING OVERHEAD

36. AND ONCE IT IS FULLY BAKED…

37. 36
DASHBOARD
SHOWS AVERAGES BY ACTIVITY AND DEPARTMENT

38. 37
COST STATEMENT
SHOWS DETAILED COSTS BY BOOK

39. POTENTIAL USES AND NEXT STEPS

40. USES FOR THE TOOL
 Development of title-based costing, to use to seek subvention
 This shows activity-based detail
 Overheads can be customized to suit the press
 Will make any request more transparent
 Management tool
 Easier to see how costs are aligning with expectations and … revenue.

41. NEXT STEPS
 Final adjustments to the tool and guidance
 Distribution via AAUP in early August
 Your feedback is always welcome!
 Presentation and discussion at Charleston in November (Lively Lunch)

42. Thank you!
nancy@blueskytoblueprint.com
kmspub@aol.com