If you’re an academic, I urge you to find out from your libraries how much publishers sell your books for electronically and compare that with how much of that you see.

You’ll see how much your hard work is being taken for a ride when you see its exploitation for obvious profit. https://twitter.com/Hohojanna/status/1247831018465304576

One academic had no idea the publisher was charging a fortune for his book on a restrictive 3-user access model which is precisely why we hadn’t bought it.

Please ask us which publishers exploit us. Ask us which publishers treated us poorly during this crisis. I will tell you.

An important point, the ebook price you see on the publisher website is the PERSONAL EBOOK PRICE.

This is how much they charge you if you buy it for yourself. It is NOT what libraries pay, at all. We often have to pay at least 10x more.

Also, the fact that librarians are getting reprimanded by publishers for talking openly about this should telling you EVERYTHING you need to know about who is aiming to hold the power in these relationships.

Other questions to ask:

Has my work been locked into a package costing upwards of £10k or more?
Has my work been locked into a yearly expensive textbook rental scheme?
Has my work been made inaccessible to screen-readers and assistive tech users by my publisher?