(Financial) assumptions underpinning the use of Opening the Future

Before we continue to the financial modelling tools themselves, it is important to contextualise them.

It is also important to note that at the beginning of the project, there was an assumption that most adopters of this model would be aiming to use it to transition all of their frontlist publishing to OA, as CEU Press are doing. However, this is not the only option. Our other partner LUP opted to apply it to one of their subject areas, and discussions with numerous publishers during 2023 and 2024 indicates that, at least at this point in time, this is the approach more likely to be taken by presses. The modelling presented here works for both a press-level and series-level adoption.

There are several assumptions behind our model that underpin this modelling and that show the aspirations for scaling:

Press-level Conversion	Series-Level Conversion
The target output volume is 25 new OA titles per year.	The target output volume is 4-5 new OA titles per year.
It costs roughly £9,000/$11,000 to produce the ‘first copy’ of each new title.	It costs roughly £9,000/$11,000 to produce the ‘first copy’ of each new title.
The press can define and curate an attractive collection of backlist titles to offer exclusively to members.*	The press can define and curate an attractive collection of backlist titles to offer exclusively to members.*
The number of packages correlates to the scale of conversion. Multiple packages will be necessary to scale with a full frontlist conversion. For CEU Press, this is 5 packages which supports c. 10-15 titles per year.	The number of packages correlates to the scale of conversion. One package may support a series-level conversion. For LUP, this is one package which supports 3 titles per year.
Library members will be banded according to their size - meaning their payments will be tiered high, medium, and low. We use Jisc and Lyrasis price banding where relevant.	Library members will be banded according to their size - meaning their payments will be tiered high, medium, and low. We use Jisc and Lyrasis price banding where relevant.

*So far, our presses have offered packages of around 40-60 titles each. (Note that the titles in the subscription membership offer would not be OA: only the new frontlist titles that the membership fees pay for will be OA).

Further Assumptions

Titles would be ‘unlocked’ (funded) only as and when enough members join – they would not be published upfront first or retrospectively funded.

Membership will last a minimum of three years, with the option to renew for another three – access to the backlist is granted in perpetuity, after three years of membership or an upfront payment of three years’ worth.
Membership will build over a three-year period, achieving the target revenue at end of Year 3 (though ideally from Year 1). The number of OA titles will grow commensurately and gradually as more membership revenue allows more titles to be funded and published.

This model has a number of characteristics in its favour, including pleasing library economics. For example, if an annual membership of €812 gives access to 50 backlist titles, and funds a further 25 OA per year - with only 200 member libraries joining this equates to around €15 per library, per title.

Pricing will, of course, be specific to your own press, and you may need to adjust the financial modelling to e.g. take account of your own first copy costs, but for CEUP we implemented three membership tiers with the highest band paying £1000, the middle band at £700, and the lowest at £200. While the prices have slightly risen with inflation, they haven’t deviated much from this (for 2025 they are £331, £735 and £1050 respectively). On this point, we suggest that you build in very modest annual increases; our presses work with a 5% annual increase, and also give libraries the option to pay three years upfront which includes a single initial 5% rise after the first year but no subsequent increases; this discount has been attractive to many of our library subscribers.

Our Experiences at Opening the Future

This is within the affordability of many academic libraries worldwide, and has been successful for them. We modelled financial scenarios in 2020 towards a target membership of 270 libraries, including slow and steady projections, enthusiastic ‘early adopter’ subscriptions, and cancellations. While this last is not ideal for take up of OA, it was realistic to expect some, and it demonstrates a model that will allow flexibility: if the revenue is not in place, or if institutions cancel, then the volume of OA simply decreases until they pick up again, at which point a resurgence can occur.

Additionally, we strongly suggest that you sign libraries up on a calendar year basis, from January to December, rather than allowing libraries to begin their access in whatever month that they sign up. The latter makes it much more difficult to keep track of whose subscription is coming to its renewal point. One of our partner presses did ad hoc access periods, and the other opted for January to December access years (with libraries either slightly overpaying or slightly underpaying depending on which half of the year they joined in). The press that opted for strict annual access years has not had any trouble with explaining this to libraries, probably because many subscriptions run on this basis. It has kept the renewal admin more straightforward for them.

The reality has been both similar and different to the expectation. At CEUP, we are currently at around 90 libraries; however, this level of support has already enabled them to flip half of their monograph frontlist to OA via Opening the Future funds alone, with funds accrued for many more titles. However, as we have been continuing discussions through 2024, we have determined that the price needs to be raised slightly in order to fund some dedicated FTE at the press to support the model’s implementation. You may also need to factor dedicated FTE into your own modelling but that will depend on how implementation can be fitted into your existing sales channels, staff time flexibility etc.

As noted above, CEU Press opted to attempt to work towards publishing their entire monograph frontlist OA. LUP, meanwhile, took a different approach, applying the model to one of their lists (Hispanic and Lusophone Studies) rather than the entire frontlist, and have used this to publish about 3 titles per year on their Hispanic and Lusophone Studies list via Opening the Future funds, with funds accrued to continue this for some time.