APA can afford to “Open Access” to APA journals for @APA members

Did you know that according to a PowerPoint slide prepared for APA Council members by Jasper Simons, Executive Publisher at APA, there is around a 60% net margin on APA Journals and around 80% net margin on PsycINFO? That is related to revenue of around $40 million and $30 million respectively.

You can learn more about profit margins or “net margins” here at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_margin Profit margin is calculated with selling price (or revenue) taken as base times 100. It is the percentage of selling price that is turned into profit, whereas “profit percentage” or “markup” is the percentage of cost price that one gets as profit on top of cost price. While selling something one should know what percentage of profit one will get on a particular investment, so companies calculate profit percentage to find the ratio of profit to cost.

The profit margin is used mostly for internal comparison. It is difficult to accurately compare the net profit ratio for different entities. Individual businesses’ operating and financing arrangements vary so much that different entities are bound to have different levels of expenditure, so that comparison of one with another can have little meaning. A low profit margin indicates a low margin of safety: higher risk that a decline in sales will erase profits and result in a net loss, or a negative margin.
Profit margin is an indicator of a company’s pricing strategies and how well it controls costs. Differences in competitive strategy and product mix cause the profit margin to vary among different companies.

If an investor makes $10 revenue and it cost him $1 to earn it, when he takes his cost away he is left with 90% margin. He made 900% profit on his $1 investment.
If an investor makes $10 revenue and it cost him $5 to earn it, when he takes his cost away he is left with 50% margin. He made 100% profit on his $5 investment.
If an investor makes $10 revenue and it cost him $9 to earn it, when he takes his cost away he is left with 10% margin. He made 11.11% profit on his $9 investment.

As far back as 2015 I called for APA to “give members free electronic access to all APA journals.” I think it would be a great member benefit and improve recruitment and retention for APA if APA would simply give members access to the electronic database that they otherwise charge members for now (some of whom “work for free” to produce, edit and/or peer review the research that appears in the journals). This free electronic access would be only if members opt out of having print copies of journals shipped to them (which would offset some cost). This would help the environment by reducing the number of APA publications that end up in landfills. It will also reduce printing and shipping costs for APA. Meanwhile, we’d be improving APA members’ access to research.

APA can afford to give free, open access to all APA journals for APA members.

Todd