John Wiley & Sons

Macmillan + Springer: Some Lessons to Learn, Some Twists to Watch
January 20, 2015

The recent merger news about Macmillan, owners of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), and Springer, owners of Biomed Central and other properties, hit the market with plenty of force. It's a major consolidation, and one that ratchets the Macmillan higher education and journals growth strategy up by an order of magnitude. Now, along with Elsevier, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis, we have another multi-billion-dollar publishing behemoth on the market - the combined entity is valued at $5.8 billion.

Dutch Universities Dig in for Long Fight Over Open Access
January 9, 2015

Dutch universities have vowed not to soften their groundbreaking demands for publishers to permit all papers published by their academics to be made open access for no extra charge.

In January last year, Sander Dekker, the Dutch minister for education, culture and science, decreed that 60 per cent of Dutch research articles must be open access by 2019 and 100 per cent by 2024. Dutch university presidents responded by agreeing to make their renewal of subscription deals dependent on publishers taking steps to realise this goal.

Getting the University Presses Back in the Game
December 16, 2014

The "game" in the title of this post is journal publishing. University presses are primarily known as book publishers, as well they would be: the combined output of the university press community monograph programs represents a cornerstone of our civilization. But the presses have long been active in journal publishing as well. By my count about half of the American presses publish journals, for a total of around 200. Add Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press to the mix and the total approaches 1,000. That's about 4% of the total

John Wiley Beats Q2 Earnings on Acquisitions, Restructuring
December 11, 2014

John Wiley & Sons Inc. reported second-quarter fiscal 2015 adjusted earnings per share of 90 cents that topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a couple of cents while rising 7% year over year (up 8% on constant currency basis).

Revenues grew 6% (6% on a constant currency basis) year over year to $477 million and were ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $475 million. Growth at the Education segment along with several acquisitions, including CrossKnowledge and Talent Solutions, in the Professional Development segment, aided by a consistent improvement in journal revenues

The Arms Race in Journals Publishing Heats Up
September 4, 2014

One form that the sharp competition in journals publishing takes is spirited auctions for the rights to the publications of professional societies. The head of a scientific society sometimes stumbles into this situation like a yokel coming into the big city for the first time. "They are really proposing to pay us that much? And with all these guarantees????" Yes, it is surprising to see what the commercial value of highly specialized research publications has become. The reason for this is that the largest publishers know very well what the prize is

Press Release: Wiley’s Altmetric Launch Demonstrates the Impact of Research Online
July 9, 2014

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. today announced the addition of Altmetric data to its journal program, a service that provides a more complete picture of how users engage with scholarly research online. Following the success of a six-month pilot on Wiley Open Access titles in 2013, the service will be available for all journals by the end of July

Press Release: Gale Adds Hundreds of Wiley Titles to e-Book Platform
June 3, 2014

More than 400 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. e-books are coming to Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL). GVRL is the e-book platform offered by Gale, a leading publisher of research and education resources for libraries, schools and businesses and part of Cengage Learning.

Oyster CEO Eric Stromberg On Leading The Ebook Subscription Space
May 8, 2014

Today Oyster, the ebook subscription service that launched last year with 100,000 titles, announced that it has topped the 500,000-title mark. "This is the culmination of a lot of content acquisition that we've been doing over the last six months," says co-founder and CEO Eric Stromberg. Among those acquisitions are John Wiley & Son's For Dummies series, McSweeney's Time Out Guides, and Chronicle's Grumpy Cat and Boo. All three publishers are new to Oyster.

Book Publishing in Boston
July 1, 2013

In many ways, Boston's publishing industry is a mirror on the iconic city. Though relatively small, the city and its publishing are known for history; for being a center for academics, thought and innovation; and for being a hub of independence and rebellion that triggers change. In these times of rapid transition in the industry, Boston just might be the place to see big changes happen in publishing.