This is the story of a once great academic publishing house whose reputation is now tarnished among academics, authors and even among the editors who are currently engaged to edit their vast and varied suite of journals.
The academic publishing industry is a significant international employer, with the leading companies having offices in most major cities across the world and with outsourced proof-reading, type setting and printing in many developing countries. Some individual flagship journals in these companies make millions of pounds for the companies, although with journal ‘bundle’ selling to libraries and payment for open access and article downloads it is notoriously hard to pinpoint the profit made by any single journal.
For the many highly profitable journals there are many which do not make a bean for their publishers and some which are run at a loss as the companies support scholarship in some niche areas.
The present academic publishing giant Wiley evolved from John Wiley & Sons, a major US publisher and its merger with Blackwell Publishing, a well-established UK publishing company which was still in family hands until the formation in 2007 of Wiley-Blackwell. Eventually, the US partner dominated, the ‘Blackwell’ of Wiley-Blackwell was dropped, and Wiley emerged.
