AP is an independent, online, journal of collaborative research and thinking on major issues of our times. Our first edition was published on the 9th April 2004.There is no gossip, no advertising nor any hidden enterprise on any part of the site. We simply offer the lowest possible cost information and ideas while offering writers and artists fair renumeration for their work. (All contributors share income with the company based on downloads for each article.)
Subscribers are the sole means of income for AP so by logging in, and purchasing articles, you are making strong, diverse, independent Australian media and publishing industry a reality.
We regularly release a compendium of essays on a major contemporary theme. Most essays are over 3,000 words in length and can be purchased for as low as .60c each. To purchase an essay you must log in and follow the options for purchasing one or more essays or downloads. The more downloads you purchase the cheaper it is for you. We would like to keep costs low for even single downloads, but bulk downloads are necessary to minimise costs because of the high transaction fees associated with multiple payments over the Internet.
We are very proud of the illustrations that are completed by Kerrie Leishman and other collaborators. Our illustrations are visual arguments in their own right and subscribers enjoy high quality illustrations with most essays.
Starting out
Transparency is all important. So we document the stories behind each edition and how and why each edition has emerged in the way it has. But the first and obvious question is: Why a new journal? Certainly we draw inspiration from the great American Prospect. Over the years writers like Kuttner, Bluestone, Galbraith, Faux, Rothstein, Reich gave us a glimpse of our own future as America's. But the shape, inspiration and purpose of Australian Prospect is home grown.
Our hunch is that Australians from all walks of life want more serious analysis of the events around them. There is a market gap between academia and the opinion editorial that we want to fill. The brilliantly edited and presented Australian Quarterly was the closest thing we have seen to our new project, but we want to develop, every few months, not just one essay, but a corpus of collaborative writing that considers major issues of the day, and moves the country's mind forward, and we also want it to be readily available across the country instantly and internationally at low cost. No easy task!!
Editorial Philosophy
Australian Prospect is fiercely independent and will tackle all issues and all sides of politics without fear or favour. Our guide will be ideas and the hard work of rigorous analysis.
In each edition we will offer: Collaborative hard-hitting essays available in pdf form at a tenth of the cost per word of contemporary newspaper articles online and with illustrations that are potent visual arguments in their own right.A New Deal for Writers and Readers
For a long time now we have known that the internet could halve the organisational costs of printing each year. We want to use cost effective publishing and at the same time distribute some of the efficiency savings to the people who are never paid enough: independent writers and thinkers. Our challenge is to make a fair return in order to support an ongoing operation. By using new technology purposively and keeping our production infrastructure extremely lean, we also want to pass on a productivity dividend to our readers, in the form of low costs; and to our writers, in the form of fair payment. Our view is that information available on the internet is either too expensive or too cheap. The end result is that the rich get richer, and/or those who have something to offer do not make enough income to support their organisations. We hope to have struck the right balance with our pricing, but ultimately this is a question which you will determine. If you invest in us, by making a long term subscription, we will we know that our pricing is right.
We are delighted to be a part of Earthwatch's e-give, e-commerce system that gives you the opportunity to make a donation to an environmental cause or project. Look for the e-give logo that will appear on the download screen of your browser.
Governance
The governance structure of AP is simple. Each edition is developed around a general issue or challenge and writers and contributors work together to collectively shed light on the problem at hand. AP is open to submissions for individual articles, guest editors are also invited to submit ideas for whole editions. Editors and writers themselves make the key decisions relating to the content of a particular edition. Decisions pertaining to the philosophical, business, legal, administrative side of AP are made by Peter Botsman as Chief Editor and Managing Director of the company.
Future Editions
Planned future editions include:
Labor Reconstructed/ Rethinking Liberalism Environmental Enterprise (Spring 2005)Indigenous Governance The Australian Republic The Capacity Paradox (Winter 2005) Challenging Orthodox Economics: Full Employment and the Rise of Spatial Keynesianism
Australian Prospect is proudly produced in regional Australia.
Letters
Considered responses to each edition will be posted in a special compendium placed at the end of each edition. These will generally be listed in the weeks after the edition is published and will be noted in correspondence to you.
If you have articles or ideas for AP or if you would like to comment on any of our editions or articles you can write to Australian Prospect c/o PO Box 29, Barrengarry, NSW, 2577. Though we thrive on email, we also love the slowness of snail mail. For email then please contact pbotsman@bigpond.com
Copyright
The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows 10 per cent of the number of the words on this website to be reproduced and/or communicated by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or the body that administers it) has given a renumeration notice to the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
For details of the CAL licence for educational insitutions contact:
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Except as permitted under the Act (for example for the services of the Crown or in reliance on one of the fair dealing exceptions i.e. fair dealing for the purposes of research or study) no part of this website may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, communicated or trasmitted in any form without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the copyright owner, c/o editor, working papers.com PO Box 29,. Barrengarry, NSW, 2577, ph: 02-44-65-1665, email: pbotsman@bigpond.com