Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
2016
Citation
Monograph Costing Tool: A User’s Guide, Nancy Maron and Kim Schmelzinger. Association of American University Presses, 2016
Abstract
This tool is designed to help presses of all sizes determine the full costs of publishing monographs. It may be useful if you are preparing to apply for a subvention to publish a monograph and need an itemized cost statement. Or, it might just be information you need to have in order to better assess and run your business. The process described below will be easiest if centrally coordinated, whether by the press director, business manager, or the Chief Financial Officer. It will almost certainly require some time for departmental heads. Whether or not you choose to involve more staff in the process is up to you. Those who have done so have found that the process can have benefits well beyond the numbers.
The Monograph Costing Tool is essentially one large Excel workbook with a summary sheet that draws the data into a comprehensive view. The workbook includes many tabs, whose data is linked throughout the workbook; when you enter data on one page, it often feeds to other cells on that page and other pages. The Tool’s authors have tried to make the math behind the calculations as simple and transparent as possible. One need just look on the formula line in Excel to see how data is aggregated on a given page, or how data is pulled from the tabs into the dashboard.
Excel sheet is attached (below)
Excel costing tool
Comments
(c) 2016 by the Association of American University Presses. The Monograph Costing Tool and User’s Guide are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike 4.0 International License.