Dear Joachim
in my view, it's not a question of quality, but of fairness. There are some academic publishers in Germany that just live off their 'prestige' and outsource all work to the author, who not only supplies the content, but has to do all proof-readig, type-setting, layout, etc. (which normally is the publisher's job) and you even have to do all the fundraising yourself by applying to all the Foundations, etc. (and you never get any help from the publisher for that although the money goes straight into their pockets). There is not much money to be made from academic publishing, but I do wonder what these publishers are actually good for. All they do is bestow their 'prestigious' blessing on a finished product. As it stands, authors have to accept these terms and this 'prestige' economy because you won't get taken seriously in Germany if your work isn't backed by a recognized and accepted name. But I'm glad this business model has as not taken root over here yet...
Best,
Jochen Hung
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