The new edition of the leading journal Tolkien Studies (Volume 14, 2017) appears to be available now at Project MUSE. Not that I’d be able to tell, as it’s pay-walled there. Scholars outside academia and outside the USA have to pony up $70 for a paperback version. $70!

Why is there no ebook version, on Amazon? The editors might be able to make more profit that way, according to my back-of-the-envelope sums. Let’s say they sell 1,000 copies of the $50-$70 paperback and make $38 a copy after printing and overheads. That’s $38,000 profit in maybe 18 months of sales. Let’s say that West Virginia University Press takes a 35% publisher’s cut, thus leaving the editors with about $25k per issue.

But if there was an $8.95 Amazon-delivered ebook giving $6 profit per book, after Amazon’s modest cut, and it sold 5,000 copies (because it was on Amazon, and so cheap and accessible in digital form) then that would give $30k profit in 18 months or so.

Anyway…. the highlights of the issue, for those not interested in the invented languages, are:

* The Mystical Philology of J.R.R. Tolkien and Sir Israel Gollancz: Monsters and Critics. (Update: found in Open Access)
* Visualizing the Word: Tolkien as Artist and Writer. [Update: found a summary on the author’s blog]
* The Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies 2014. (The usual lengthy and authoritative survey review)

Project MUSE does at least have the first page of each of these, for free.