Building a sustainable publishing model for your journal is no easy task. At the beginning, things may feel largely positive. You’ve established your journal, submissions are gradually increasing, you’re expanding your reach online. But over time, factors outside of your control are likely to affect your journal’s progress.

The success of a journal isn’t solely dependent on great publications or inspired editorial decisions. It’s subject to industry changes, as well as dependencies on funding and platforms.

Imagine your journal is a car; you can drive it as sensibly and efficiently as you like, but you don’t always have a say on the smoothness of the terrain beneath your wheels. And yet knowing how to implement a reliable engine and plan for unforeseen circumstances can still help your journal along, especially if it’s small and with limited resources.

Creating sustainable publishing models

To build a resilient journal, you need to create a sustainable publishing model to uphold it. Essentially, a sustainable publishing model is one that aids you in generating income for your journal. This model needs to be adaptable, able to weather economic, technological, and academic changes, all of which may be occurring simultaneously.

Within open access publishing, journals are sustained by various types of business models, each with their own distinct financial terms and agreements. For example, the most common open access publishing models currently are Gold and Diamond Open Access (OA).

With Gold OA, a journal receives an article processing charge (APC) by or on behalf of an author (if the latter, the fee is usually fronted by the author’s institution). With Diamond OA, no fees are required from the author, however the journal must be supported by other financial means.

Just from these two models alone, it’s easy to see how achieving a sustainable publishing model is dependent on lots of different considerations. For example, if you choose to utilize the Gold OA model for your journal, you may be more interested in integrating your journal into a larger enterprise, such as a publisher. From here, the publisher can leverage direct licensing agreements with authors and institutions en masse, increasing your revenue via APCs on a consistent, annual basis. If you choose the Diamond OA model, you’ll need to find other funding sources, such as grants, institutional support, or membership models.

Diversifying dependencies

Journal publishing is not an insular industry. It’s subject to a variety of changes—economic, technological, academic—that unfold across society and culture. As a journal looking to build a sustainable, resilient publishing model, it’s necessary to diversify your dependencies to safeguard your growth during uncertain times.

Create multiple revenue streams

In times of economic uncertainty, previously reliant sources of funding may suddenly become less sustainable, or even worse, disappear completely. That’s why you should avoid being dependent on one source of funding. Develop multiple partnerships to create various revenue streams; this could involve collaborating with universities, agencies, or societies to receive subsidies or share costs for building your journal’s online infrastructure. Stretgeic partnerships with sponsors, grants, and even crowdfunding can also be useful ways to bolster your revenue. Keep in mind that the more connections you build, the more you’ll be exposed to revenue-building partnerships and opportunities.

Collaborate with multiple institutions

Diversifying your platforms and infrastructure also helps your journal adapt to technological changes. Integrate yourself into a network of universities, libraries, and other organizations to share infrastructure and knowledge. This helps you not only keep track of significant technological changes in academic publishing but also ensures that you have access to infrastructure that allows your journal to compete with other journals and publishers.

Scenario planning for small journals with limited resources

This all being said, it’s significantly harder for small journals with limited resources to build sustainable publishing models and remain resilient in uncertain times. Yet there are ways to plan for uncertainty.

Membership models

Membership models are a great way to bring in extra revenue. In addition to having access to a journal’s scholarly content via open access, stakeholders buying into a journal’s membership model receive benefits and extra content. With a membership model, you are free to appeal to the niche interests of your readership through premium, targeted content.

Engage with or support decentralized infrastructure

Open-source scholarly infrastructure replaces the need to rely on centralized, financially driven models. Collaborative and community-driven infrastructure facilitates the sharing of data and tools without the need to access these through proprietary providers.

Be transparent in pricing

A good way to build a sustainable publishing model and scale your business is to be transparent in your pricing. This builds trust between your journal and institutions. Institutions are more receptive to businesses that are clear about how their pricing supports their publishing program. The clearer you are in outlining your costs and how far they’ll go in realizing your journal’s vision, the more likely an institution will be willing to contribute to your growth.

Embedding your growth

A tree is more likely to survive a storm if it has more roots in the ground. The more connections and partnerships a journal establishes, the more likely it is to weather all kinds of uncertainty.

Small journals go out of business all the time. Planning and strategizing to maximise your revenue through various channels is the best way to embed your growth in foundations susceptible to change and hardship. For further guidance on sustainable publishing modelling, see our article on revenue models for small academic journals.