Best Philosophy Book Publishers

There was a recent poll at Leiter's blog on the best book publishers in philosophy. Here is the top 7:

1. Oxford University Press  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)

2. Cambridge University Press  loses to Oxford University Press by 384–81

3. Harvard University Press  loses to Oxford University Press by 428–39, loses to Cambridge University Press by 388–78

4. Routledge (Taylor & Francis)  loses to Oxford University Press by 455–30, loses to Harvard University Press by 243–211

5. Princeton University Press  loses to Oxford University Press by 445–29, loses to Routledge (Taylor & Francis) by 229–217

6. MIT Press  loses to Oxford University Press by 452–26, loses to Princeton University Press by 223–197

7. Wiley-Blackwell  loses to Oxford University Press by 461–19, loses to MIT Press by 221–199

I thought I'd comment on a couple of things. Firstly, I wonder if there is reason for concern about OUP being so dominating in philosophy? Some 85% of my own philosophy library is by OUP, but due to their dominance in publishing, it's not always a sign of high quality. I think it might be healthier for philosophy if the distribution evened out a little bit. CUP is the obvious competitors, but they simply don't publish enough.

Secondly, I was surprised about the difference to the previous Leiter poll on the topic, from 2009. Blackwell, which is now with Wiley, ranked third then, with Routledge being considerably lower at sixth, below Harvard and MIT. Routledge is perhaps the second most common publisher of my own library, about even with CUP, but Blackwell used to publish some very good books indeed, and Wiley-Blackwell has recently been doing re-issues of some classic titles (such as E. J. Lowe's More Kinds of Being, which I recently reviewed for Mind, and Tim Williamson's Identity and Discrimination).

Well, I think that both Wiley-Blackwell and Routledge are very good publishers, and Routledge in particular publishes a lot of philosophy. I think that they could have a fighting chance, but I wonder if their prestige is shadowed by their for-profit status? Certainly, they publish a lot of introductory books and perhaps a little less research monographs. But OUP does not publish that many introductory books in philosophy -- or that's my impression. (I'm not really counting Handbooks and collections of papers here, but introductory monographs.) I wonder if the results would be different if the question had been: what are the best publishers for introductory books in philosophy? I have a particular interest here, as I'm planning on writing one, and I thought that either Wiley-Blackwell or Routledge would be my first choice. (I might advertise here that Continuum, which was recently acquired by Bloomsbury, has a new series called Critical Introduction to Contemporary Metaphysics -- I'm on the editorial board and we're accepting proposals).

Any thoughts? Does the top 7 seem right to you? What about for introductory books?

Comments

[Mark Alfano]

About the monolithic dominance of OUP: keep in mind that OUP-USA and OUP-UK are almost completely autonomous. They have distinct editors, referee lists, etc. This probably leads to a bit more diversity in their offerings than you might expect.

[Joanna Grover]

I know a series editor for CUP who was responsible for securing book contracts for three of his friends. Two of them he hired in his own department (he's the chair). He became the series editor at another university press a few years later and got the third friend (the one he didn't hire) a second book contract there. Cronyism is a major problem in the university press world. Trade presses, though lower in prestige, strike me as more just in their selection and review process. But this is just my impression.