Dear Colleagues, and Drs. Ng. and Chan, 

After finally getting through to the Nova Science Publishers, I have had a chance to look at this publishing firm. This company is decidedly quirky. It doesn't seem to be a pure cash-flow operation such as Lambert Academic Press or Verlag Doktor Mueller. Rather, it seems to be a family firm more like Common Ground publishers without the conference arm. If you want to skip the analysis, scroll to the last paragraph to find suggestions for good publishers who might have an interest in a title such as Signs and Symbols in Workplace and Public.

Nova Science Publishers has some of the same characteristics as Common Ground -- for example, a careful scroll through the list of journals reveals that many of the journals in widely different fields have the same, single editor. In contrast, the reference books and encyclopedias list different editors, but the web site gives no information on the editors or their credentials. It is difficult to learn anything about the editors, not even using Google or Google Scholar. If fields where I have some familiarity, the encyclopedic books are not so much true encyclopedias with contents offering full coverage of a field in some appropriate structure, but rather collections of articles. In some cases, the authors are by seemingly junior scholars who would not normally be chosen to write encyclopedia entries. In other cases, however, the authors are serious scholars who publish with high quality presses and journals. Several reference bibliographies incorporate long outdated texts for the core analysis with added material compiled by scholars about whom one can learn nothing. These are the signs of an unprofessional firm. If they can't manage their core business, you shouldn't trust them with your book.

The publisher's web site gives little of the kinds of information one expects in a book description at a scholarly press -- and there is nearly never any author or editor information other than the university affiliation of some authors. Since the editor of a compilation plays a key role, one would normally expect to find at least the editor's affiliation and a paragraph or two of biography. Instead, one has the image of a publishing firm that compiles books by anonymous editors chosen simply to crank out volumes on multiple topics. 

The publisher's information page gives no information about the staff, the editors, or the general structure of the firm. There is an email address of someone named "m.columbus," and the name of the editor of many journals is Frank Columbus. According to one blog, this is a tiny family firm owned by a Frank Columbus and his wife, and this would support the claim. This is a truly quirky publisher. The possibly good seems mixed with the inept and the bad. There seems to be nothing outstanding here. 

What is clear is that Nova Science Publishers does not know how to structure or market books. In that sense, a book from Nova may not be a vanity book, but it will only sell to authors and a handful of libraries. It will not have wide impact. If the book is good, this is the worst possible publisher to consider, either as an editor or as a chapter author.

If I were an editor developing and placing an edited book title Signs and Symbols in Workplace and Public, I'd look to a good academic publisher or a specialist press seeking titles in these areas. For a book on signs and symbols with respect to design, evaluation, planning and management, publishers such as Birkenhauser, Springer, or Elsevier come to mind. There are also many specialty publishers working in design, architecture, and urban planning that might find this title interesting. Another possibility would be one of the respected smaller firms that has built a niche in interesting specialist anthologies created for a specific academic audience such as Elgar, Macmillan Palgrave, or Idea Publishing.

Best regards,

Ken

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design