Ripoff 101: Gouging Students for Textbooks

Brad Lucier writes "The San Jose Mercury News covers a report by the California Student Public Interest Research Group entitled "Ripoff 101" about the high, and increasing, cost of university textbooks. The story notes several practices that force students to buy new books instead of used and quotes yours truly about how universities are insulated from the costs of books. Is electronic textbook publishing the way to go?"

Comments

Unfortunately

[Flwyd]

For a $100 textbook, students sometimes pay $5 per page they read during the semester.

Does calculus really change that much?

[GreenCrackBaby]

I'm probably beaten to the punch already, but it was always amusing (in a hopeless sort of way) how our Calculus 101 textbook would change every two years. I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure that the introductory field of Calculus hasn't changed at all over the last 100 years.

All the bastards do is introduce a few new questions at the end of the chapter and call it a new edition.

"the other side"

[danharan]

I worked 2 years in publishing and sales representation to the academic market.

*Advice on bringing down the prices of books appear below the rant*

[rant]
So there's a few things I'd like to set straight, especially for the whiny bunch (you can't bring prices down if you don't know who's responsible):
-trade stores buy books at 60% of the cover price
-university bookstores buy at 80% of the cover (a 25% markup)
-print runs on all but the most popular books (think 1st year intro) are ridiculously small
-professors are lucky if they make 10% of the cover price. Even if that amounts to $5,000, a tenured professor would expect to make more money than that for a few hundred hours of work. (It's not the money: it's publish or perish).

So, the university bookstore is obviously not making massive amounts of money, nor is the author(s). So, the publisher makes a killing, right? Well, sometimes. The guys cranking out a new edition of that $120 first year text every 4 years is making entirely too much money, as are those that bundle materials or otherwise force you to buy a new copy.

Smaller publishers that can't get professors to publish that big first year textbook with them generally aren't doing so well. Publishing any book cost several thousand dollars. Printing is not the biggest expense, and goes down fast as print run size increases (per unit, obviously). Editing and layout eats up most of the budget, then you have to add sales and distribution.

Yeah, there's a few people that think we could let professors write things on a wiki, and not bother with editing. Sometimes, you're right: there are some professors that can actually write. Let me be blunt: we reject 90%+ of manuscripts, and the other half can be unreadable without major editorial adjustments. Editors have to be highly educated, and it is not uncommon for them to be PhDs- and that doesn't come cheap.

An index also cost money and you can't just use a software package to tell you what words are on what page, as that's pretty useless.

Having spent a good part of my time in the sales side of things... do you realize how many books we have to outright GIVE to professors so they will consider the book for their class? They're only a few dollars a pop to print, but having to meet professors, find out what they are teaching the following year, mail them books once printed... all that costs a lot of money. In upper-level classes with small enrollments, you can be giving out 2% of the books, and some free copies for TAs (up to 1 per 25 students).

And don't get me going on the price of an ad in an academic journal, or sending sales reps to their conventions.

Moral of the story: it cost an awful lot of money to put out a book. There are profiteers - the first year textbook sellers that put out a new edition every 3-4 years, and the folks that would give you $4 for that $120 book.

This is not the music industry. Publishers -especially the smaller ones- are nerds that want to put out good books.
[/rant]

To get back to the prices though... as I said, there are profiteers: resellers and big publishers.

The resellers ought to be put out of business. Use eBay, whatever it takes, but don't sell them books.

There is another player in this market that has enormous power to set things straight, but is often overlooked: the professor.

If your professor wrote one of those fat 1st year texts which comes bundled- lobby them. Tell them you find such practices appalling, and that you would much rather spend money on beer. :) Seriously, be polite but firm, and be prepared to reiterate- some have been so high up in their ivory towers that oxygen is sometimes rare. The publishers can put out a new edition every 3-4 years only with the complicity of the professor.

If your professor asks you to buy those expensive books, ask them to complain to the publishing house. A couple professors that tell the sales reps they won't use the text again unle