We’re committed to publishing the best scholarship in the social sciences and humanities – and for the content being as widely accessed as possible.

Our research publications will be made available online on a Creative Commons non-commercial license. Unlike open access journals we are not looking for authors (or their research funders) to pay for the publishing process. From mid 2010 they will appear on our new platform in html. Until then PDFs will be posted on this website. At the same time we will be publishing in traditional print book formats as well as ebooks with enhanced functionalities.

The debate over whether or not free availability increases or decreases sales rages on, not just in publishing but also in the music and film industries. Pilot projects in academic publishing indicate that book sales are not harmed, and authors are happy to reach a wider audience.

Because research and teaching are inextricably linked we’ve purchased a superb backlist of upper level textbooks from the Arnold/Hodder collection to complement our research-led publications. These were not conceived to appear on CC licenses and will be available for sale only. However, we are discussing a few experimental models where we’ll be opening up content as much as possible online. Please subscribe to our e-Newsletter for more information as we work on this.

We welcome feedback on our publishing model.

March 2010
Cory Doctorow visits Bloomsbury. Watch his video presentation

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