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Publishing Services RFPs

The Most Important Decision Most Organizations Will Make

The selection and successful negotiation of a publishing services agreement often represents the single largest contract an organization will sign.

High Stakes Negotiations

C&E represents the most prominent scientific and scholarly organizations in the world in high-stakes publishing negotiations. In aggregate, we have negotiated over a billion dollars in journal contracts — including nine-figure deals. We have successfully successfully negotiated placements on behalf of our clients with all the major publishers in the market, including Wiley, Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Sage, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Wolters Kluwer.

C&E has developed a market-tested approach that is commensurate to the stakes involved for our clients.

The Agency Model

C&E approaches the selection of a publishing partner and negotiation of publishing agreements differently that other consulting firms. We believe that the selection of a publisher and the resulting negotiations should not be run as procurement or vendor selection process. This is because it is a licensing negotiation. And one that often represents the single largest source of revenue for our clients. Societies (and consultants) that do not realize this distinction — and run publishing services RFPs like vendor selection RFPs —  are likely to leave a lot of money on the table.

C&E’s agency model is designed specifically for the complexity and nuances of journal PSAs. It combines high level of financial analysis, a strategic perspective, and point-by-point deal making—with a content licensing orientation. The agency model is focused not simply on running a process but on delivering an outcome. That outcome is a strong strategic relationship underpinned by favorable financial terms.

Ultimately, C&E’s agency model is different because it is outcome, and not process, focused. While we are always improving our process, we are not focused on efficiency at the expense of results.

When to Conduct an RFP?

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The publishing services RFP is an intensive process. We have worked to make it as painless as practical for our clients. Through this process, however, societies typically learn a great deal both about publishers themselves, as well as how each publisher thinks about and values the society’s portfolio and the opportunities for the society’s program in the marketplace. This last point bears emphasis: there is no way to meaningful value a society’s journal or journal portfolio without asking publishers for proposals. The value of a journal is what the market will pay it, and this valuation will change based on market conditions, publisher priorities, competitive dynamics, and other factors.

We often talk to clients who have been told by other consulting firms that they do not need to conduct a competitive RFP. They are told that it is a lot of work and there is not going to be much improvement in offers so they should just renegotiate with their incumbent. This is usually the wrong advice. How would the consultant know how the market values a particular portfolio without an RFP?

What is going on is the consultant has determined that an RFP is not a good process for them. They have developed low-margin, “efficient” processes with poor outcomes. It is often more lucrative for them to run a simple renewal process. They get paid faster. They do less and often generate higher margins. You get a poorer outcome. In over a decade of managing successful RFP processes, not once have we ever had a situation we either we or our client believed (after the outcome) that they should not have run a competitive process.

There are limited scenarios where it may be sensible to renew with an incumbent publisher without engaging in a competitive process. These include times when the society has gone out to the market in a competitive RFP process in the recent past (e.g. they are 3 years into a 5 year contact) AND the publisher has put forward a favorable advance-renewal offer AND there is nothing that has occurred in the current contract term that would warrant and substantive increase in a financial offer. In such circumstances, we will advise clients to consider an incumbent’s advance renewal as the society has recently market-tested their portfolio.

However, in considering an advance renewal offer, the word “advance” is critical. The society needs evaluate the offer with enough time before the end of their contract so that they could run a competitive RFP process in the event the incumbent publisher’s offer not sufficiently favorable.

PSA Structure and Process

Societies and other not-for-profit organizations that produce journals have two broad options. They can can remain independent (self-publishing), managing all facets of their publication business. Alternatively, they can work with a larger commercial or not‐for‐profit publisher. Under such an arrangement, the society will continue to own the journal and maintain full editorial control, but will outsource production, distribution, and other business matters to the publisher. If a society chooses to work with a larger publisher, it will invariably do so via a publishing services agreement (PSA)

We routinely work with both societies that already work with a larger publisher and are seeking to renegotiate their PSA or evaluate other options, as well as societies that are currently independent and are exploring a PSA for the first time.

For more on publishing services agreements, please see Michael Clarke’s article, “The journal publishing services agreement: A guide for societies,” which appeared in the January 2020 issued of Learned Publishing.

The RFP Timeline

From start to finish, the RFP process typically requires 12 months, not including transition time after a contract signed. This is for a relatively simple portfolio that has been with a larger publisher already. Societies that are currently self-published will wish to leave 18 – 24 months for the process given the sharp differences in models, unpredictably transitions, and more complex contract negotiations.

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Emerging Issues

Through our broad base of consulting work and analysis for our industry publications, The Brief and our Industry Trends Report 2024, C&E stays on top of emerging issues in scholarly publishing. We routinely study the strategies of the major publishers and how those strategies interplay with society journals. Several emerging areas of publishing strategy are becoming decision factors and/or negotiation points in publisher selection and publisher agreements. These topics were uncommon (or in the case of transformative agreements, unheard of) a decade ago but now are factoring into most publisher agreements. C&E has been out in front in considering their implications for society journals.

Information Asymmetry


The publishing services RFP is an intensive process, not to be undertaken lightly. Through this process, however, societies typically learn a great deal both about publishers themselves, as well as how each publisher thinks about and values the society’s portfolio and the opportunities for the society’s program in the marketplace. This last point bears emphasis: there is no way to meaningful value a society’s journal or journal portfolio without asking publishers for proposals. The value of a journal is what the market will pay it, and this valuation will change based on market conditions, publisher priorities, competitive dynamics, and other factors.

The leads to the primary reason for issuing an RFP: the asymmetry of information between societies and large commercial enterprises. This asymmetry arises because commercial publishers negotiate and sign a great number of PSAs with societies every year (and indeed, in some cases, every month). Because of this, they have far more information at their disposal about journal valuation, market conditions, competitive dynamics, typical financial offers, and contract terms than a society that has never issued a publishing services RFP before or only does so once every 5–10 years. It is therefore incumbent upon a society contemplating entering into negotiations with a larger publisher to work to reduce this information asymmetry. The RFP process (especially when accompanied by a situation analysis) is designed to do exactly this.

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