Comments on Textbook Report -- a New Edition

• Hildebrand
• Posted by Craig C , political pundit at http://blogresponder.blogspot.com on October 31, 2006 at 7:05am EST

• Talk about self serving. Hildebrand is representing the faction that wants the status quo on textbooks. Of course he is going to criticise the report. The largest problem with textbooks in my view is the quick turnover to another edition, making previous editions useless. There seems to be some sort of payola going on, with the universities and possibly even some professors getting kickbacks from the publishers to support the new editions.
  I could be wrong, but it sure looks that way.

• New editions that aren't very new
• Posted by math prof on October 31, 2006 at 7:31am EST

• The report recommends:

  Publishers should keep each textbook edition and related ancillary items on the market as long as possible without sacrificing educational content.

  Of course they should, but they deliberately
  don't. Publishers regularly introduce new
  editions of math textbooks, with minimal
  changes from the previous edition, thereby
  killing the used book market for that text
  and forcing students to buy the new edition.
  Also, once the new edition comes out the
  old edition goes out of print, making it
  impossible to continue to use that one.

  Certainly professors look at the quality of
  texts first when deciding which to use.
  That's obviously, and obviously should
  continue to be, the main consideration.
  But we don't like this new edition every
  few years racket any more than students do.

• Kickbacks
• Posted by math prof on October 31, 2006 at 7:31am EST

• Craig C writes:
  There seems to be some sort of payola going on, with the universities and possibly even some professors getting kickbacks from the publishers to support the new editions.
  Do you happen to have any evidence for this insulting allegation, or are you just in the habit of making these sorts of unfounded
  accusations?

• Math Prof
• Posted by Craig C , political pundit at http://blogresponder.blogspot.com on October 31, 2006 at 7:50am EST

• If it smells like a rose......

• Posted by EngProf on October 31, 2006 at 8:45am EST

• Or, Craig C, if it smells like professors putting time and effort into developing resources that are then incorporated into the custom textbook, so students get more use out of the book and don't forget what they need for class. (I know it sounds like grade school, but if you've ever taught you'll know that "I forgot it at home" lasts well into people's 20's.) I suppose the professor deserves no compensation for the work, or any protection of her intellectual property? In every case I've heard of, the professor's compensation is around the $2-5 range per book, and many professors (like me and many textbook authors) put the money back into the department. No one is getting rich from these compensations.

• The price can be right...
• Posted by John , Professor at New England Institute of Art on October 31, 2006 at 8:50am EST

• I have found smaller publishers with lower cost textbooks that are superior to the standard texts through the "bigger" houses. My Intro Psych. text costs a whopping 34.00, with a brief Abnormal Txt at 29.00. Many larger publishers are offering customized texts, but the costs are still too high. I also encourage my students to "rent" texts to each other after the class is complete thereby retaining the text but recovering the costs. Intro courses do not have the dynamic and extensive changes specialty courses undergo, but when change is obvious in specific areas, supplemental materials support the information and prompts critical analysis of the differences...

• Posted by Soc Prof on October 31, 2006 at 8:55am EST

• The turnover of editions is definitely a problem. I had an excellent family sociology textbook. Its author did not complete a 2nd edition quickly enough to have it published 2 years after the first - although no change was actually needed. The textbook publisher dropped him and the book - although they still put the book on their web site. A new publisher has picked it up for a "2nd" edition - but in the meantime, I've had to revise the course to fit the book I had to select under duress.
  The second book was also excellent. It had been on the market only 18 months - not long enough for many to try it - when the same publisher canned it for lack of sales. They offered to let me have it as a custom book.
  I'm now using the 4th edition of a well-known text. It is not as good as either of the others: but likely to continue in print.
  They just announced a 5th edition, right on schedule, making the ones my students are now reading obsolete.

• Textbooks should be free!
• Posted by Grover Furr , Assoc. Prof. / English & Comp. Lit. at Montclair SU on October 31, 2006 at 9:30am EST

• Given digital technology there's no excuse for charging anything at all for textbooks. They can be written and vetted by faculty, and placed on the Internet for free downloading.

  It'd be nice if colleges & universities began to reward faculty for writing textbooks as they now do for research. But it's not essential.

  Copyright permissions can be obtained the usual way, or even dispensed with, since fair use still permits limited distribution for non-profit educational purposes.

• The other side
• Posted by Tim , Professor on October 31, 2006 at 9:30am EST

• Looking at textbooks from the student's side is wonderful, but there is another side to that coin, the author's. I have written a couple of textbooks, the latest one 2 years ago. This last royalty cycle I received exactly $47.00. I know my book is in fairly good use from comments and questions from other faculty that use it. However, it has a great used market. My students pay around $60 for a new text, I get a tiny bit of that for a royalty. When they buy a $50 used copy I get nothing. None of my students this semester have new texts, none of them. Where is the incentive to write a new book? All in all I have made less than $.25/hour, yes, twenty-five cents an hour for my writing time. Not a good return on investment, and no, I didn't do it for the money but because there wasn't a good book available. But in all this talk about the book market, please remember that there authors out there who are getting the short end of the stick with used books. The bookstores are the ones who are making out like Robber Barons here. Just my $.02.

• Posted by Humble guy on October 31, 2006 at 9:35am EST

• I don't understand why anyone would expect a publisher to accomodate the used book market. Would you ask any other company to make efforts to pass profits on to their competition? If the professor, the trained expert in teaching a subject, feels that a specific book is the best, shouldn't that have more merit than the opinion of students who don't seem to make acquiring the subject matter knowledge the priority?

• an insider weighs in...
• Posted by An insider--prof, rep, editor on October 31, 2006 at 10:07am EST

• Craig C is correct about 'payola', but it's not so widespread as he may suggest. Thus, the distinguished, dedicated profs writing in ask for evidence. Rarely, textbook companies and their reps will engage in subtle ways to 'buy' a textbook adoption with a prof or committee--providing free equipment (e.g. a laser disc player!) or elaborate dinners or underwriting some campus conference or the like. And too, in the customization option for texts, rarely are some profs taken in by the prospect of royalties (for themselves, their depts, their schools) from sales of custom books, provided that a percentage of the material in the custom book includes the prof's own material. So, subtle ways of securing textbook adoptions, but rarely employed.

  I'd look to those smaller, independent publishers for fine texts at reasonable prices! Students don't need to have the whole goddamn thing handed to them in "a book bound with a free CD and free access code to a book-specific website", costing nearly $100 or more. And profs, who need ancillaries, can surely find test questions and other pedagogic material to supplement their use of a given text! Surely!

• Prof. Tim
• Posted by Duncan on October 31, 2006 at 10:07am EST

• So. Do you consider put the book on school web site and let your student access for the price of $1. I am sure with that price student and universtity wouldn't mind the setup.

• what about the bookstores?
• Posted by David W on October 31, 2006 at 10:18am EST

• As Tim points out, bookstores are the ones who make money on used books. But none of the PIRG reports ever mention this, instead they blame the publishers.
  Students who expect publishers to support a used book industry--when publishers and their authors earn absolutely nothing when used books are sold--need to take a remedial econ course!

• Classics
• Posted by Eugen Z. , Professor on October 31, 2006 at 1:10pm EST

• Lucky me. Teaching primary texts, I use quality paperback editions, which undergo revision only after many years if at all. In college, I learned very little from expensive textbooks in humanities and social sciences, but much from primary texts in those fields. While it is not feasible to teach calculus or engineering from primary texts, it is feasible to teach many subjects using primary texts in inexpensive, widely available, and easily resellable editions. It is more challenging, but more interesting for both teacher and student, in my humble opinion. Why this habitual reliance on the textbook industry, even where it is unneeded and, indeed, a hindrance to education? Pre-digested material discourages rumination.

• Authors Get Hurt
• Posted by TBD on October 31, 2006 at 1:10pm EST

• Concur with Tim. I authored a cheap deviance text that is getting killed by its used copies. I fault the chain bookstores that pay students next to nothing in buyback, then sell for a pile. Yes many new books are far too expensive, but the bookstores partly fuel this "arms race." There are no such things as residuals on used books or rental books, unlike songs and the like.

• Why is this argument solely about commerce?
• Posted by Carol R. Anderson , Director of Career Development and Placement at Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy on October 31, 2006 at 1:10pm EST

• In a former life I was business manager for a college text publisher and director of business and operations for an elhi supplementary publisher: most publishers are not enjoying double digit profit margins and few authors create wealth from royalties. Yes, adding give aways such as test banks, CDs, ancillary software, not a new practice, added unnecessary costs that jack up prices and may or may not have tipped adoption decisions. Yes, publishers too often shorten revision cycles without pedagogical justification. Yes, there's a lot of money made by intermediaries in the used book market. But I hear no one questioning why students sell their books instead of creating a reference library for their professional lives--and I work with a lot of graduate students who need that Prentice Hall or Harbrace Handbook from freshman composition class right at their elbow. I kept most of my college texts, more of my MBA texts, and all of my texts to earn a certificate to teach ESL. In my current work at a professional graduate school counseling students who must master concepts and tools, not just earn a good grade, to succeed, I am stunned at the number who do not keep their texts. Much of the used book problem would not exist absent this behavior--and no, you can't find everything you need by Googling the topic.

• This Term We’ll Be Using The 46th Edition
• Posted by RWH on October 31, 2006 at 1:11pm EST

• Anyone who believes the publishing companies are doing anything less than ripping off college and university students is simply not paying attention.

  That one can use color and graphics to great advantage to explain intellectual concepts is without doubt. That most textbooks fail miserably in their efforts to do so is equally obvious.

  In preparation for one of my operations research courses several years ago, I wrote one of my overly long syllabi, identified a large number of homework problems, coordinated readings with lectures, etc. On the first day of class I discovered that my students had a “new” edition of the text and 100% of my preparation had been with the older edition – one that was the “latest” edition for only three years – in mind. No one will be surprised to learn that the authors, at the behest of the publishers, had added a new, short, mostly irrelevant chapter (to make the text “cutting edge”) to the old edition, had permuted and renumbered 95% of the problems in the older edition, and had added a few additional problems that seemed to be little more than versions of existing problems with either the content or the numbers changed.

  They had “forgotten” to notify me – one who had used various editions of that text for the previous seven years – that there was a “new” edition ... not that a new edition was either a necessary or a useful improvement of the old. It took me a couple of days to repair the damage to my syllabus and instructional plan ... and with no value added to our course.

  Nowadays, university faculty rarely see publisher’s representatives in the flesh. The once ubiquitous reps now do their business on-line, and thank God for that. That being the case, I have often wondered why clever, thoughtful authors of first-rate texts have not taken a page from Ed Tufte, published their texts in house, and marketed them on-line. Tufte has at least three exceptional texts, “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,” “Envisioning Information,” and “Visual Explanations” that (1) were written thoughtfully and accurately the first time (and are, therefore, not in constant need of revision), (2) are graphically exceptional, (3) are produced and marketed by Tufte’s Graphics Press, and (4) all sell for less than $50 each. You can take my word for the fact that were they published by McGraw-Hill, Addison-Wesley, John Wiley, or any of a dozen or so large publishing companies -- each of which enjoys all of the well-known economies of scale -- Tufte’s texts would be priced in excess of $150 each. What is worse, Tufte would be under constant pressure to revise texts that simply don’t require revision, and he would probably be distracted from his efforts to tell us why most uses of PowerPoint by academics fall into the category of mush-headed nonsense.

• Used Book Economics
• Posted by Bookstore Guy at University of California on October 31, 2006 at 1:30pm EST

• Actually, it is the STUDENTS who make most of the money from the used book market. On our campus, the student we buy the book back from gets at least two thirds of the price the used book will next sell for.

• And about the bookstores...
• Posted by Robert , Univ Bookstore Manager on October 31, 2006 at 1:45pm EST

• Yes, bookstores make more on used copies than they do with new copies, but not nearly to the degree imagined by the media or students. Running a textbook operation on a college or university campus is far more complicated, frustrating, costly and labor intensive than most people suspect, or even care to learn about. In over 30 years doing this work, I've never seen a college or university store with the kind of profit margins enjoyed by other retailers.

  Have a conversation with your college store management before launching off on "who's to blame" here. Ask them about the costs of returning unsold copies to the publishers, about the latest trends in shoplifting books, about wholesale photocopying by students, about identical imported editions costing half of the U.S. price, about why Amazon can sell the same books well below our cost from publishers.

  The overall textbook industry is in a painful transition these days for many reasons, and no one, educators, publishers, or bookstores, is doing business the same way done just a few short years ago. Everybody wants a whipping boy for high book prices, but there just isn't one villian to be had anymore.

• Another view
• Posted by P. on October 31, 2006 at 2:20pm EST

• I agree that textbooks are priced too high. That being said, I had a sobering experience last year when my students gave sales speeches. The items they tried to "sell" were quite expensive: upgraded cable tv packages, the latest pda, etc. My students, who come from very modest economic means, felt these items were essential. Yet these same students complain about the price of a textbook. I realize one can't compare a texbook to an upgraded cable package, but our students are willing to spend quite a bit of money on entertainment and electronics and only balk when they are asked to spend that money on their education.

  P.

• Re: Another View
• Posted by Anonymous on October 31, 2006 at 2:40pm EST

• Amen, brother.

• Textbooks - the debate goes on and on and...
• Posted by Bruce Hildebrand at Association of American Publishers on October 31, 2006 at 3:51pm EST

• The continuing debate over textbooks and supplemental materials is to be expected. I would be willing to wager that all one million or so faculty have their own, unique instructional style and their own opinions on what materials are best for their students. Some faculty choose a 4-color, hardback textbook and every possible support technology. Others design course packs or write their own text. If they don’t like a text, a tool, a price or a publisher they have a virtually unlimited number of alternatives. Welcome to academic freedom in the U.S.A.

  Students, of course, have their own opinions and, let's acknowledge, their choices are usually new, used or don't buy the materials.

  The question is what does PIRG really want? PIRG says the content of its latest missive is “anecdotal” – not factual – and even its claim that the report is “generated from a survey of 60 bookstores nationwide” is deceptive. A quick check of the fine print at the very end of the document shows that only 16 bookstores of the 70 contacted by PIRG actually responded to the survey. Virtually every page of PIRG’s document misrepresents, mischaracterizes, misinterprets or just plain misstates information.

  As you would expect, publishers are putting together point-by-point refutations of PIRG’s assertions. However, if history is prologue, PIRG will opt to ignore the facts, choosing, instead, to play on the emotions surrounding the cost of education as a whole and textbooks in particular.

  No matter what educational tool a faculty member chooses, PIRG will complain. No matter whether an online supplement improves student pass rates and college retention, PIRG will criticize. No matter the number of choices publishers’ make available – for example, publishers offer 216 introductory psychology titles ranging in price from $23.44 to $120.54 – PIRG will find fault.

  There are, by the way, more than 262,000 titles currently on sale in college stores across the country.
  For more than two years the Association of American Publishers has offered, in person and in writing, to work with PIRG to focus on the issues of the costs of postsecondary education, faculty choice and student success. Finding common ground has proven difficult. PIRG is all about politics. Publishers are all about learning materials.

• full price sustains the used book market
• Posted by Nick on October 31, 2006 at 3:51pm EST

• If textbooks were published less frequently, every four years instead of two say, so that used books would have a longer shelf life, then all that would happen is that the price of the first new from the publisher incarnation of the book would be higher.

  If you're a student, you don't want to be the last to buy a book. If you're first, you can sell it and so your cost for the book isn't what you paid, it's what you paid minus what you get for selling your copy into the used market, however you do that.

  The bummer is for students who buy the last used edition of a book; that has no resale value. But then, those students are generally buying a used book anyway, so it's not as bad as all that.

  Also, there are lower cost alternatives to many books. So there are books with wire binding instead of plastic; or books with out tabs; or books without color that cover the same material as more expensive versions.

  And done right, custom publishing is a good thing because if done right, everything bought will be used. If everything is used, everything assigned, then it has greater value relative to price than a bigger book that is bought and then only half or a third of it is assigned or covered in a course.

  That's not to say there aren't abuses, but it's not as bad as PIRG's like to make it out to be.

  If Hildebrand's biased because he is a publisher spokesman, PIRG's are biased too: they get their funding on campuses from student fees. On some campuses these are voluntary, on some they are not. So making hay over textbook prices and blaming primarily publishers --and less so bookstores whom they share a campus space with-- is good business for the PIRG's.

  Everyone's got an angle in this discussion, but the fact is things won't change by fiat or legislation. The book/used book economy is going to shift due to technology and deeper customization. That should over time lower costs, but getting there won't happen over night.

• Fair is fair
• Posted by math prof on October 31, 2006 at 4:51pm EST

• I'm also an author and I happily collect (modest) royalties from the sale of my books.
  I don't expect publishers to accommodate the
  used book market by refraining from
  publishing new editions. But I also don't
  think it's proper for them to publish new
  editions of texts (including my own) unless
  there is really new content in them.

  With respect to the poster who advocated
  putting texts on line and dispensing with
  asking permissions, this is not fair use
  and is a clear violation of copyright.

• Provide Information
• Posted by Jerry Meriwether , Administrator at UF on October 31, 2006 at 4:55pm EST

• The best start to help with this matter is to require that textbook information be posted 60 days prior to the start of the next term. In this way, the used book market will be very active locally which will not only cuts cost but works for a more sustainable campus as well. Let's get this done in conjunction with the other suggestions. Increasing the availablity of use texts begins with the need for more information ironcially.

• open source solutions
• Posted by Dale Yerpe , Dale at Jamestown Community College on October 31, 2006 at 4:55pm EST

• It's just possible that some fields will find relief from textbook costs with the free material and open source software that is growing on the web.
  For my introduction to literature courses, I can choose from more free short stories, poetry and drama online than I can from any anthology on the market today. I would miss the feel of the book and I would miss reading off paper, so I will always have the publishered collections on my desk, but starting this spring I'm going "textbook optional" only assigning works available online.
  Certainly many disciplines can't do this, but is literature the only one that can?

• Posted by Mr. Bookstore on October 31, 2006 at 4:55pm EST

• Has CalPirg done a study as to how much students spend a year on booze, drugs and fast food? What about designer clothes, tennis shoes and spring break trips? I agree that it is a bit ridiculous for publishers to be cloaking themselves in the whole "we supply the latest and greatest content mantra"...in many cases, new editions are simply published to kill used books. Lets be honest here.

  For those of you who think publishers are a bunch of fat-cats living large and taking advantage of the poor, unscrupulous students wake up!!! In 1991, there were close to 15 major higher education publishers. Today there are 4! Mergers traditionally do not result in more jobs....they virtually always mean that people LOSE their jobs and industries shrink.
  I've seen college kids steal cable, shoplift, illegally pirate music and worse. If textbooks were priced at a dollar and buyback was 50 cents, students would still complain.

• Math Prof Part 2
• Posted by Craig C , political pundit at http://blogresponder.blogspot.com on October 31, 2006 at 7:16pm EST

• So in reality, you agree that turning over a math book after a very short time to a new edition is not good. Then why does it happen if not because the publishers want to keep the money machine cranking? If I were a prof, it would be easier to teach out of a book I already knew, than to teach out of a newer edition that was only rearranged, with basically no new content. Or do the profs get that info from the publishers to ease the transition?

• Posted by Donald Lazere on November 1, 2006 at 5:55am EST

• As an author who put ten years into writing a textbook that will make little or no profit because of the used book business, I think that both PIRG and several of the posters here are missing a key point. I hold no brief for the textbook industry, which (aside than a few small, independent houses) is increasingly monopolistic and high-handed toward authors at best, and which has become gobbled up by megacorporate bureaucracies that dictate inflated profit goals.

  However, textbook publishers are up against the corporatization and computerization of the used book business, by which virtually every used copy of a book in the country can be bought up within a year of publication and instantly shipped to any bookstore for resale, reducing new book sales to little or nothing. Neither publishers nor authors make a penny in profit from used book sales. I do not understood why publishers have not had the political clout to lobby for laws guaranteeing them and authors some payment on used sales, but because this has not happened, virtually all profits on new textbooks have to be made in the first year.

  The consequences are disastrous for all concerned (except, I guess, the used book sellers and bookstores that make more from used than new sales). First and most obviously, publishers are forced to bring out new, completely different editions every few years to beat the used book market, often with no scholarly justification for changes. Second, new-book prices are inflated because publishers must make virtually their entire profit the first year. Finally, and worst of all, the major publishers have been sucked into the blockbuster syndrome. In order to guarantee sufficient sales to make a profit the first year, they turn down many excellent books that are not predictably big money-makers and put all their eggs in the basket of what they gamble will be best-sellers. To maximize sales, the chosen few books are dumbed down by editors to the level of the lowest common denominator of student and teacher, and are stripped of any politically or culturally controversial content.

  This is a perfect vicious circle that makes yet one more contribution to the downward spiral toward abject ignorance and demagogy in American politics, media, education, and culture in general.

• Publishing for profit?
• Posted by Bob Martinengo on November 2, 2006 at 2:00pm EST

• It is interesting to note that Thomson, a publisher that has taken plenty of heat in the textbook pricing fracas, just announced it is selling off its textbook publishing division, Thomson Learning. Will the new owners cut cover prices to gain market-share, or will they jack up prices to boost profits?

  In the meantime, rather than rehash the pricing issue, over and over, wouldn't it be better to figure out more ways for students to pay for college, and textbooks?

• Ignorance is Easy
• Posted by Eric Baker , Student on November 3, 2006 at 8:20am EST

• Textbooks are just one example of the willful ignorance I see running rampant in our world. Student (and, shamefully, even some professor) attitudes are analogous to those with other industries. Let's bring down the capitalist pigs. I have some breaking news: ours is a capitalist system, and you all (if you are smart, work hard, and are a bit lucky) will be working for organizations like these.

  Let's think about this for a moment. Have any of you complaining about these companies researched even the most basic facts? My guess is few or none. what are their after tax net profits compared to those of other industries? Well, I have done the research and I can tell you they are not high. Thomson Learning, a major publisher in college books, was recently offered for sale. Why? Would you as a corporate CEO oversee the sale a valuable assett that you saw making money for your company? I think you'd keep it. The reason it's being sold is that it is not profitable like other divisions.

  What about this: every time you "save" money buying a used book you put upward pressure on the price of a new texts, as publishers who are not too profitable sturggle to survive. This means that when you are forced for whatever reason to actually give some revenue to these people providing us with important course materials by buying a new book, you will be paying more.

  People who drink too much beer and watch too much football should stick to beer and football and not offer ignorant opinions on subjects they know almost nothing about, except that they don't want to spend money.

  News for y'all: no one wants to spend money on education, but everyone wants the benfits.

  Get a brain.

• book prices
• Posted by bill hockensmith at University of Maine on November 3, 2006 at 9:46am EST

• As a Bookstore guy, I would like to clarify one point. Used Books are more profitable because thats what students choose to buy,not because of the "Margin".The percentage of profit is higher but since they are sold for less (usually 75% of new), the actual net return per book is about the same. Considering the additional work, risk, etc., a good argument could be made that used books are LESS profitable. Except that's what sells. A bookstore's financial advantage (selling Books)is providing an item that appeals to it's customer's financial advantage (paying less). Unfortunately, that does'nt work for publishers or authors. If I choose not to offer used books, my students will go to online sources and book prices will not go down.
  I wish I had a solution that would meet the financial advantage of all involved;students, authors,faculty,and publishers. I am condident of only one thing.The textbook industry is a very complex animal. Their are no easy solutions. Blaming publishers, used book wholesalers, bookstores or students may feel good, but will not provide a remedy.

• Posted by John on November 3, 2006 at 10:01am EST

• It is not the used book market that creates the necessity to revise editions or create worthless ancilliaries in packages. It's the ever-more-fierce competition among the big college publishers parented by media conglomerates. The game is winning the adoption from faculty, pure and simple. Creating a bundle consisting of a CD, Study Guide, the core text, and perhaps a decoder ring is designed to win the sale against another publisher's inferior looking package, not thwart the used market. Coming forth with a "new" edition is yet another way to argue "cutting edge" material to an instructor over another publisher's year-old edition.

  Publisher's domestic marketing costs are driving up textbook prices. It's expensive for the major houses to sell against each other, to vie for the attention of a professor who controls a one-thousand-copy adoption.

  If what Mr. Hildebrand is saying were true publishers would not have the ability to peddle the exact editions they produce for American students at prices as much as 60% lower overseas. I have never heard a viable reason why "International Editions" or "Economy Editions" can be produced for overseas markets but not for our own students.

  The major college textbook publishers have many, many more questions to answer truthfully.

• Selling Textbooks Overseas
• Posted by David N on November 3, 2006 at 5:45pm EST

• Textbooks can be bought for lower prices overseas for much the same reason you can sometimes book expensive hotel rooms for a song or get a cheap airfare by flying standby. No hotel or airline or publisher could afford to sell at bargain prices to everyone all the time, but once a business has sold the bulk of its product at the going rate, it may make good economic sense to sell a certain amount more at substantially less, particularly if the alternative is not to sell any more at all.

• Horsefeathers
• Posted by Eric Baker , Student on November 4, 2006 at 11:00am EST

• David N. - horsefeathers on the reasons why textbooks are sold for less overseas dude.

  A middle-class Indian worker makes one tenth the wage of a north american middle-class worker. The publishers cannot charge $150 for a textbook there because that would be the equivalent of $1500 to them.

  It's as simple as that. The publishers make most of their profits on the North American market just now, I would guess. They are probably just piggy backing the same books into these lower-wage markets for long-term reasons--eventually, wages in India will catch up and it will be a great market to be in. Right now, though, people who ship the overseas versions back to the US are just ripping off others who have to pay the freight on a (higher priced now--thanks!) norht american edition.

• Posted by David N , HORSEFEATHERS? on November 6, 2006 at 5:25pm EST

• ERIC BAKER — Yes, exactly. International versions are priced lower than North American editions because they are sold in markets where the North American prices would be noncompetitive. My analogies to hotel rooms and air travel were just to point out that it sometimes makes sense to have more than one price for the same commodity. The question implicit in all the criticisms of international versions of textbooks is, "If they can sell it overseas for so much less, why don't they sell it for that here in the USA?" The answer is, "If they sold it for that much in the USA, they wouldn't make a profit." My niece visited Manhattan and got a room (through a website) in a luxury hotel for $100. Why can't all luxury hotel rooms be rented for $100? Because no Manhattan hotel could afford to set their regular price that low. Did they lose money on my niece? No, because the room she got wouldn't have been rented at all if it hadn't gone to her.