Scholarly book publishing has changed dramatically over the past decade, both in terms of the business models and consumption formats and the choice of publishers now available to scholars looking to disseminate their work.
On the commercial side, there are currently only a small handful of large publishing conglomerates now publishing high quality information for global audiences. On the non-profit side, many of the most respected university presses and associations have either stopped publishing or significantly reduced the number of titles they can manage each year.
Increasingly, selling individual book titles to individuals has been replaced or supplanted by selling collections of titles to institutional buyers, who in turn provide access to those titles via large-scale online distribution platforms. The importance and commercial viability of print has diminished in recent years, although the latest print-on-demand technology coupled with sophisticated supply-chain management has enabled many of the most specialized publishers to thrive with selling both digital and print books.
ACM believes strongly that the new dynamics in the book publishing industry favor those publishers that remain focused on quality above all other considerations, although there are many publishers out there with enough size and scale to offer a compelling sales pitch to institutions looking to buy large quantities of book content in bulk even with a mixed bag in relation to quality.
That has never been ACM's approach, although because of ACM's longevity and reputation, the size and scale of ACM's overall publication program has grown to become one of the largest and most respected collections of scholarly information anywhere in the world.
This combination of quality and scale offers ACM Books authors a unique opportunity to position their work as part of the world's most respected CS Publisher, and to have a great publishing experience in the process.
ACM Books is managed by the ACM Books Editorial Board, led by Editor-In–Chief Tamer Ӧzsu of the University of Waterloo. The Board consists of an impressive roster of well known and distinguished Area Editors who represent many of the major areas within computer science. Over time, additional subject areas and Area Editors will be appointed to the Board.
Area Editors are responsible for inviting members of the community to submit book publication proposals, evaluating invited and unsolicited proposals and manuscripts in their areas, including peer review, and making final publication recommendations to the Editor-In-Chief. See here for a current list of Area Editors.
Production of ACM Books will be managed by Morgan & Claypool with a fast and high quality collaborative process. Accepted authors will receive their choice of LaTeX or Word macros incorporating the standard series design. Upon submission of final files, the book manuscript will be edited, formatted, and submitted by M&C; to the author for final sign-off. In addition to editing and formatting services, M&C; will provide assistance with graphics & art preparation. ACM Books will be published in several digital formats including downloadable pdfs, reflowable ebook formats, including EPUB, Kindle, and HTML, and as printed books utilizing the most cutting edge digital print-on-demand technology available.
ACM Books will be widely distributed to an international readership through the joint efforts of ACM and M&C; working together. ACM Books will be offered as an additional purchase option for ACM’s more than 2,800 academic and corporate libraries worldwide that currently subscribe to the ACM Digital Library, as well as to thousands of additional academic, government, and corporate institutions interested in the computing domain.
For academic libraries, consortia, and corporate institutions, ACM Books will be sold as Collections, with the first collection consisting of approximately 25 titles, publishing as from 2014. ACM Books licensed by an institutional library are free to all students and patrons within the institution’s IP range for course and individual use, and ACM will make such titles available to institutional users via mobile devices utilizing its unique Remote Access Tools & Services. ACM Books will also be offered to ACM’s 110,000+ individual members from over 100 countries around the world as an additional option to their annual membership dues and individual ACM Digital Library access charge.
For those preferring to purchase individual titles from the Series, individual titles will be made available for sale from the major global print and ebook retailers worldwide, including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
The primary goal of the ACM Books series is to provide a broad distribution outlet for book authors in the computing community. Pricing the series so that it is affordable to ACM members and institutions around the world is a priority for ACM Books. ACM has a longstanding reputation for pricing its publications affordably, and this Series will follow in that tradition.
ACM Books authors will be compensated for their work and the successful sales of their titles. All ACM Books authors will receive a royalty of 10% of the amount received from the sales of their books, in all media and all markets around the world, including all print and digital channels.
ACM Books will be actively marketed to the computing community through various channels including advertising in ACM magazines, via ACM’s network of Special Interest Groups (SIGs), in dozens of ACM Web Sites targeting various segments of the computing community, and ACM sponsored conferences taking place around the world each year.In addition, ACM Books will take advantage of ACM’s extensive international sales & marketing network of subscription agents, operating in over 80 countries on ACM’s behalf. This offers widespread visibility and reach for all titles in the Series on par with marketing & sales efforts offered by many of the large for-profit commercial publishers, while retaining ACM’s more “community-centric” business model and fair pricing approach.ACM Books will receive personalized attention by leveraging the extensive and comprehensive ACM Special Interest Group (SIG) network of niche communities within the computing domain. Individual title publication will be announced on appropriate ACM subscribed lists and will be searchable via Google, Google Scholar, and the major search engines.
Lastly, individual titles in the Series will be available through the major online retail channels, such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.
Consistent with ACM’s general Publishing Policy, most recently updated on April 2, 2013, all ACM Books authors shall be given the option of signing a copyright transfer Agreement or an exclusive license to publish Agreement, as part of their Author Publishing Agreement with ACM Books.
For more detailed information about ACM’s general, please visit ACM’s Author Rights site at: http://authors.acm.org/main.html
