Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015: A Subject Approach is now available as a free PDF or a $6 trade paperback.
As usual, you’ll find links for the Lulu paperback, the free Lulu pdf, and the pdf on my website for those not wishing to open a Lulu account at the project page, waltcrawford.name/goaj.html
The new book is a supplement to Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015, adding a chapter on each of 28 subjects and slightly expanding the subject-segment chapters from the earlier book.
Update
As of right about now (4 p.m. PDT, June 15, 2016) at figshare and Lulu and as of 5:30 a.m. for waltcrawford.name, here’s what I see:
- The data: 633 views and 55 downloads. Since the views only show 50 rows, I regard the 55 downloads as meaningful.
- The project page: 259 views. This tells me (see below) that most people forwarding information on the PDF provide a direct link to the PDF rather than to the project page. The latter is a courtesy, but the former is neither surprising nor unfortunate.
- The paperback: One copy–mine. I’ve received it and it looks great, and I think it’s an enormous bargain at $6 (or less–lately Lulu’s been having one-day sales almost every day). I find it much easier to use than the PDF ebook, but then I’m old and still print-oriented. (Hey, if 20 people buy the paperback, I’d make enough money to have lunch at my favorite local Chinese place–except for tip.)
- The Lulu PDF: 28 copies.
- The waltcrawford.name PDF: 1,769 copies. (Now that it’s around 2MB, those might all be successful downloads.)
- Cites & Insights 16:5, almost entirely an excerpted version of the book: 454 copies
Of course, it’s possible (and entirely legal) that some folks have forwarded PDF copies to others, but I’ll ignore those…
In any case, it appears that Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015 has reached up to 2,251 people so far, although it’s likely that some downloads failed and some people who read C&I also downloaded the full PDF.
I’d call that reasonable success for a niche publication in its first 16 days.
As for the second supplement, The Countries of OAWorld 2011-2015? Despite the tumbleweeds that have so far greeted my request for feedback on interest in this book, I may still do it–but it’s going to take a while longer than the first supplement did.
For one thing, I plan to write a non-OA issue of Cites & Insights (possibly trying to use Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking for parts of it, since my hand still isn’t back to normal).
For another, it’s a bigger effort–either 54 or 69 country chapters (depending on whether I use 25 journals or ten as the lower limit for full chapters), plus six chapters with brief coverage for other countries in each region (Pacific/English doesn’t have any other countries). Even with some trimming to make chapters shorter, it’s likely to be a much larger book.
Best guess? Some time in July or August.
(Still inviting feedback.)
