STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS
PUBLISHER’S REPORT JULY 2015
Your team at SAGE:
Lauren Ashby, Associate Editor
Lauren.Ashby@sagepub.co.uk
Divya Jyoti Munjal, Production Editor
Divyajyoti.Munjal@sagepub.in
Naomi Blumsom, Group Marketing Manager
Naomi.Blumsom@sagepub.co.uk
CONTENTS
Contents............................................................................................................................................................................................ 1
Circulation and Sales ...................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Online Usage and Website Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Marketing and PR ............................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Private and Confidential: the information contained within these documents for the
express use of the Editorial Board of Studies in Christian Ethics
CIRCULATION AND SALES
Traditional subscriptions

Institutions (single traditional)
These are your print and electronic subscriptions sold to single library institutional customers.

Institutions (package maintained)
These are the previously held print and electronic subscriptions to your journal that now form part of
a larger bundled package sale to a library consortium.
2011
2012
2013
2014
Individuals
88
75
64
64
Members
-
-
-
-
Trad Organization
228
224
211
Migrated Organization
35
35
Total Organization
263
259
2013-2014 renewal
rate
2015 YTD
100%
45
-
90
200
95%
176
38
39
103%
53
249
239
96%
229
Traditional subscriptions are doing well. A renewal rate above 90% is strong in a changing library market,
which is good to see.
Package
2011
2012
2013
2014
2013 vs 2014
renewal rate
2095
2512
2697
2696
100%
2015 YTD
2648
Package arrangements now predominate as the primarily model by which libraries arrange access. Over 2600
institutions around the world are now able to access Studies in Christian Ethics.
Geography of subscribing institutions
Consortia sales are also a powerful way of expanding the geographical reach of the journal: this is discussed in
more detail in the Error! Reference source not found. section of this report, beginning on page Error!
Bookmark not defined.. The below chart shows the breakdown of geographical access to Studies in
Christian Ethics in 2014.
Philanthropic and developing world circulation
Just under 5000 institutions globally are now able to access SAGE journals through our partnerships with
organisations committed to expanding the reach of knowledge in the global south.
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Developing World
4248
4204
4946
4946
4946
DDP
5
4
4
3
3
2
Discounted Subscriptions to Theological Colleges, Seminaries and Theological Library
Associations
In order to support access to important journals for smaller institutions SAGE offers a discount of 30% on the
institutional subscription rates for our theology titles to all non-university-affiliated theological colleges and
seminaries. We offer additional discounts to specific Theological Library Associations around the world who
represent institutions who are often under greater budgetary constraints - such as For ATL, the Forum of
Asian Theological Librarians. Members of such organizations are entitled to a 50% discount. The 50% discount
has recently been extended to new agreements with the Christian Association of Libraries in Africa and the
Latin American Theological Library Association.
ONLINE USAGE AND WEBSITE ANALYSIS
Online usage
We are able to distinguish between paid and unpaid usage when reporting on article downloads. Paid usage
refers to articles downloaded by readers who accessed the journal via their institution’s paid-for subscription
(so while the article may appear free to the reader, it was effectively paid for by the reader’s library’s
subscription/consortia arrangement). Unpaid usage refers to articles downloaded by readers who accessed
the journal through their individual accounts by signing up to one of our free trials. This distinction is
important, as librarians only monitor paid rather than unpaid usage in order to determine whether to renew a
subscription. Our primary focus is therefore on increasing paid usage.
Annual Total Usage
Total downloads
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
22347
26529
33685
28521
14293
Paid downloads
Downloads
% of total
16995
20397
24683
22647
11891
76%
77%
73%
79%
83%
40000
35000
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
2011
Paid downloads
2012
Total downloads
2013
2014
Linear (Paid downloads)
Total downloads of Studies in Christian Ethics in 2014 were slightly lower than in 2013, but this is partly to do
with a change in the way in which we arranged our free trials. The paid usage – usage which comes from
subscribers – remains broadly level. WE will continue to see ways to build the proportion of usage which
comes from paid subscribers, as this is an important part of maintaining subscriptions to the journals.
Alert registrants
More individuals continue to sign up for Studies in Christian Ethics alerts – there are now 4398 registrants, 431
more than at the end of 2013.
3
Top 10 downloaded articles: August 2014 – August 2015
The table below shows the most downloaded articles during the last year.
Title
Surname
First
Name
Date
Total
Abstracts
Total
Downloads
Book Review: Church of Scotland, Theological
Commission on Same-Sex Relationships and the Ministry
and Church of England, Report of the House of Bishops
Working Group on Human Sexuality (The Pilling Report)
O'Donova
n
Oliver
2014
3
1292
Individual Rights versus Common Security? Christian
Moral Reasoning about Torture
Biggar
Nigel
2014
627
503
The Ethics of Photojournalism
Mitchell
Jolyon
2000
30
417
Trusting the Untrustworthy: The Theology, Practice and
Implications of Faith-Based Volunteers' Work with ExPrisoners
Armstron
g
Ruth
2014
774
324
Christian Witness on Abortion: The Examples of Paul
Ramsey and Stanley Hauerwas
Fitzgerald
John J.
2014
1100
258
Surveillance and the Eye of God
Lyon
David
2014
891
249
When Is Torture Right?
McCready
Douglas
2007
522
243
What Do We Want from the Just War Tradition? New
Challenges of Surveillance and the Security State
Gregory
Eric
2014
623
210
The Practice of Christian Ethics: Mindfulness and Faith
Parsons
Susan F.
2012
415
195
The Ethics of Punishment and the Ethics of Restoration: A
Critical Analysis
Danaher
William J.
2014
690
195
Does Sport Build Character? A Progress Report on a
Victorian Idea
Erdozain
Dominic
2012
478
194
The Single Individual in Ordinary Time: Theological
Engagements with Sociobiology
Hall
Amy
Laura
2013
662
177
Fair Innings? Against Healthcare Rationing in Favour of the
Young over the Elderly
Fisher OP
Anthony
2013
366
163
Moral and Philosophical Problems of Long-Term
Imprisonment
Liebling
Alison
2014
755
159
Which Relationality? Whose Personhood? The Christian
Understanding of the Person, 'After-Birth Abortion' and
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Muhling
Markus
2013
504
143
Body Integrity Identity Disorder and the Ethics of
Mutilation
Song
Robert
2013
370
135
Simone Weil: Suffering, Attention and Compassionate
Thought
Jesson
Stuart
2014
480
134
Until the End Willed by God? Moral Theology and the
Debate on 'Euthanasia'
Jans
Jan
2011
239
132
(In)visibility Before Privacy: A Theological Ethics of
Surveillance as Social Sorting
Stoddart
Eric
2014
972
132
Owning Our Bodies? The Politics of Self-Possession and
the Body of Christ (Hobbes, Locke and Paul)
Wannenw
etsch
Bernd
2013
520
129
4
MARKETING AND PR
Promoting Studies in Christian Ethics
Our marketing activities aim to:




Help readers find your content
Increase access to your journal
Increase citations and downloads for Studies in Christian Ethics
Help attract the best submissions from the best authors
We use a variety of marketing tools to promote Studies in Christian Ethics, including social media channels,
blogs, email, online advertising and free trials to journal content.
Free access promotions
All SAGE journals
We run a free trial across all three of our major online product platforms (SAGE Journals, SAGE Research
Methods and SAGE Reference) annually in October. As well as increasing visibility and awareness, we also use
these campaigns to collect registrant data (which can then be used in future marketing campaigns). We also
run a specific Theology, Biblical and Religious Studies free trial with the purpose of tying in with the AAR/SBL
conference, discussed further below.
As you can see from the table below, the 2014 free access trial had a positive effect on the usage of Studies in
Christian Ethics, with a 77% increase in downloads from September to October. This increase was sustained
during November, when a discipline specific trial was held for Theology journals.
Aug 2014
Sept 2014
Oct 2014 (free trial
month)
Nov 2014 (discipline
free trial month)
Dec 2014
2314
2115
3737
3747
1656
Newsletters
We prepare discipline specific newsletters for Theology and Biblical Studies. These typically contain updates
about individual journals, special issues as well as industry news.
The following newsletter was our spring newsletter, which focused on news about all Theology Titles
published with SAGE, and contained a collection of articles focused on Easter which aimed to drive users to
journal content directly. The Open rate was just under 20% which is above average for newsletters, which
means that over 5000 individuals read the newsletter. Around a quarter of those clicked through the
newsletter – a click through rate of 5% overall, which is again above average.
Deployed to
26126
Unique Open Rate
Unique Opens %
Unique Click Rate
Unique Clicks %
5100
19.52%
1342
5.14%
Open rates indicate the number of people who open the email when received, while click throughs indicate
the number of people following links from the newsletter.
5
Social media
Social media present new opportunities and new marketing channels to increase online readership, submission
and citation of journal articles. We are seeing a steady growth in engagement (followers, mentions, retweets)
among many of our social media channels and evidence of increased traffic back to journal content on SAGE
Journals.
We have created a number of discipline-specific social media channels in order to promote our journals. We
also tweet to the library community via @SAGElibrarynews and to the wider community via @ SAGE_News.
If you would like information and advice on blogging, producing podcasts or setting up your own Facebook and
Twitter account for the journal, have a look at our social media guidelines on the SAGE Editor Gateway. We
can work collaboratively with you to create a tailored social media strategy to fit Studies in Christian Ethics.
SAGE runs a twitter feed specifically to highlight content and news from the Theology and Bible Studies list,
@SAGEReligion, which now has 444 followers, having been in existence for around 2 years. We work
continually to build this following, as social media is becoming ever more significant for article dissemination,
including among Theologians. We regularly send out content from Studies in Christian Ethics on this channel.
SAGE blogs
SAGE Insight is our research news blog highlighting journal research, both new and historical, across all subject
disciplines. It aims to promote topical and interesting research to the public and policy makers. We invite
authors to suggest their articles, if relevant; our PR team also regularly reviews journal content to check for
suitable articles to promote. If there are particular articles that you would like to have featured on this blog,
do let me know.
Author marketing
We have recently introduced a new series of email campaigns for authors to engage themselves further with
the journal that they published in. When an author publishes a paper, they will receive the following series of
emails:

Five ways to increase usage and citation of your article (to educate authors on tips they can
implement to make their articles more visible)

Stay up to date with research published in Studies in Christian Ethics - sign up for Journal Email Alerts
(to present new content to authors as soon as it’s published)

Sign up for citation alerts to your article (to enable the author to track citations)

See what your peers are reading and citing (linking to live feeds of most read and most cited articles
on the journal site)

Thinking about where to publish your next research article? Submit to Studies in Christian Ethics (to
encourage further submissions to the journal)
The series has been set up in such a way that frequently published authors will receive the series of campaigns
no more than twice in 24 months and the second time no sooner than 6 months after receiving the first.
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