Where to publish

There was a short discussion about greedy publishers in this thread:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/design-software/flotilla-6-1-released-49750.html#post677629
May be someone is interested to continue this discussion. I found this post
http://socialevolutionforum.com/201...edy-for-profit-scientific-publishers-part-ii/
showing that the profit margins of the large publishers are twice as high as the margin of ExxonMobil.

I myself published some papers on automotive subjects and two about topics in yacht design. The result was very disappointing. After publication I got no feedback at all. Also the peer-review process was a flop. The only question I got was the request to tell the reviewer the brand name and type of the accelerometers that I used. Meanwhile the papers are hidden in very expensive journals and are not searchable by google.

On the contrary I got very helpful feedback here in the forum. So I decided to publish my reports only on my own website and use this forum for "peer-review". I also got some personal e-mails from german students who showed real interest. I would like to recommend ones own website for publication. Has anybody had similar experiences?
Uli

 

Hi Uli,

I can sympathize with you. I have had over 60 articles and technical papers published over the last 30 years or so, and have seen ever growing restrictions on places to publish. My wife is also a novelist, (www.arlissryan.com) and so have seen first-hand from the author's point of view what the nature of traditional publishing and self-publishing is like. My wife's first three novels were published by traditional big-name publishers, and her latest we published ourselves with on-line, print-on-demand publishing, with very nice success, I might add.

As for me, my first technical papers were published through The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, either through symposia or through their quarterly journal, at the time, Marine Technology. That publication has, in the last few years, changed its name to (mt) (of all things) and they no longer take on technical papers--they publish only news articles. There was a time when Marine Technology published really useful papers that any designer could use as a design tool. But during my tenure with them, they started publishing only "newsy" technical papers that had little to no useful, practical value. That is, the authors withheld critical information and/or data that would render the paper useless. If you wanted to pursue the science for a given application, you had to hire those authors for help. So the whole technical field kind of fell apart, except perhaps for some of the symposia.

In the 1980s and 90s, I published articles in the trade yachting and boating press, and this brought some notoriety for me. Prior to my time with the magazines, one could expect to get your design published for some exposure. But by the time I came along, the magazines had pretty much stopped doing that, publishing only reviews of existing boats (owned by their advertisers, of course) so there became fewer and fewer outlets to publish one's designs. I stayed with the likes of SAIL magazine, Ocean Navigator, Yachting, etc. until my work seemed to have run its course. Since the early to mid-90s, I have worked closely and almost exclusively with Professional Boatbuilder magazine, and I participate in their IBEX conference just about every year. These are two excellent vehicles for publishing, and getting paid for it.

And then came the Internet, websites, and forums. One does not necessarily need a publisher to get one's ideas out. This forum, in my opinion, is the best place on the Internet to publish one's own designs and ideas related to boating. Exposure and critiquing is immediate. I publish my own designs and stories about my work on my website, and I frequent this forum, and one or two others, to keep my name visible. By the amount I give on the forum, work actually comes back to me and puts money in my pocket.

About 4 years ago (gee, has it been that long!) I participated on one thread on this forum that lead to me publishing "The Design Ratios", which I first made available on that thread, and then through my website. That thread has had over 48,000 views as of today, and The Design Ratios has helped a lot of people understand some of the principles of naval architecture. I did not make a dime off that publication, but it has come back to me in other ways.

If one has an extensive topic to cover, and would like to publish something more in the form of a book, and cannot find a proper publisher, then I highly recommend CreateSpace from Amazon. It is relatively easy to use, and they provide excellent technical support. My wife's latest novel, Sanctuary, is published there. The advantages of CreateSpace are: 1) You get paid a much higher royalty than a traditional publisher will give, and 2) if you find a mistake in the work, you can correct it easily. CreateSpace is print-on-demand publishing, meaning that the book does not exist until someone orders it. Once the order goes through, the book is printed and bound in 1-3 days and shipped immediately. It works really well. The disadvantages are: you have to do your own marketing, and so you have to be really aggressive about getting it to rise above all the rest of the self-published books out there (there are millions!). Also, traditional book reviewers tend to not consider self-published books for review, but that may not be too important.

So, yes, publishing on your own website and here on BoatDesign.net are about the best places to get your ideas exposed. And while you won't make any money on publication, it does give you some credibility if your views and advice are accepted. Professional Boatbuilder is very good, too, for traditional publishing for professionals.

Eric

 

Thank you Eric for sharing your vast experience. Very helpful!

 

Second the motion on CreateSpace. Also you can pay to have your book reviewed by Kirkus. That doesn't mean "pay for a good review" it means "pay to get them to look at it." If the reviewer doesn't like your book then you've wasted your money. If they do then a lot of librarians will read the review.

Cheers,

Earl

 

I also sympathize with your position, Uli. My last publication was in
Sept 2012 and most of that was written by a colleague using computations
I performed about 5 years earlier. I have received no feedback at all
from that effort.

It is excruciatingly slow to get published in some journals. At one
stage it was going to take about 3 years to be published in the Journal
of Ship Research. Many journals now have a "fast track" feature, but
even then it can take a long time. They also force you to use their
specific formats which can sometimes mean days of frigging around moving
text and figures around. If I ever have something of sufficient merit to
publish again I'll use arxiv.org. (It's just a shame they don't yet have
a better engineering section yet.)

I also agree with you and Eric that putting your ideas/reports/programs
on the net, and especially here, gets far more useful feedback. I also
get proposals from (apparently) very attractive Russian girls: you
don't get that by publishing in the Journal of Ship Production!

Finally, from my perspective, boatdesign.net is the perfect place to
"publish" computer programs. I really can't see a better way than
attaching the program to its own thread where I can add updates and
people like Daiquiri can complain about how expensive my programs should
be.

Leo.