Scholarly Book Publishers in Spain: Relationship between Size, Price, Specialization and Prestige

Introduction The prestige of book publishers is an important element for the assessment of SSH scholars in Spain. Until 2012, that ‘prestige’ remained based upon subjective, individual judgements from assessment committees’ members. In order to provide a more objective reference for the prestige of book publishers, ÍLIA research group developed a ranking of book publishers (so called SPI) based on the opinion of almost three thousand experts from all SSH fields (Gimenez et al., 2013). Nevertheless, the factors underlying the perceived prestige are unknown. Some authors worked on the influence of marketing on the perception of books. Squires (2007) point out that ‘we should not underestimate the value or efficiency that the association with a specific publisher provides to its contents’. It is hypothesized that three factors (among others) might be related to the perceived prestige: size of the book publisher (number of titles published), specialization (share of titles in each discipline) and price of the books. This research present the results of a correlational study on prestige, size, specialization and price of SSH book publishers in Spain. The perception of ‘prestige’ strongly differs among different subjects to which the term can be applied. When the object is a product or a brand (with book publisher names as equivalent) the quantifiable variables related to the perception by different subjects of the different levels of prestige is relevant for explaining or defining the construct. The overall number of titles published by a book publisher could act as a reinforcement of the perception of prestige since the frequency with which the reader or consumer will be exposed to the brand is statistically more probable and this could lead to a perception of the publisher as able to publish more and better than others. In many goods, the perception of the prestige of competitors, in a similar way to how multi-branding strategies operate (Rahnamaee, A., & Berger, 2013). A brand prestige might also affected by the price (Yeoh & Paladino, 2013), and so the price of book might partially contribute, in a linear fashion, to the perceived prestige of book publishers. Finally, specialization, as a factor, which might create a link between a specialized scholar with an specialized publisher, might contribute to influence the perception of the publisher as more prestigious in absolute terms. Since Scholarly Publishers Indicators (SPI) is being currently used as a source of information for assessment procedures in Spain (in some SSH fields), it is important to know whether the perceived prestige can be attributed to factors unrelated to the essential issues in research evaluation or if, by the opposite, the perceived prestige is not strongly (linearly) associated to these external factors.