<p>There are some real interesting comments in the NY Times [Business] blog about the high cost of college textbooks. I didn’t realize that there were so many options to get a required book at a discount these days.</p>
<p>Is the industry a racket? Could be. I never liked the idea of a professor assigning a book of which he himself/herself is the author. And I don’t buy the idea that every new textbook has no market in the second year, which is what industry representatives say. I was told years ago by an editor that an Ivy League history/government professor did become a millionaire from the sales of his textbook. Maybe not a common occurence but at $100 a pop these books do generate good revenue for publishers. Otherwise, why would the publishers’ salespersons endlessly solicit professors to carry their companies’ titles?</p>
<p>The biggest racket is new editions that are almost identical to the previous edition with just a few additions here or there or the problems reordered or a couple added. I was taking the 2nd semester of a Spanish class and a new edition had come out. The teacher said I was fine using the old edition that I already had - it had some different cultural information and the page numbers were off - otherwise exactly the same.</p>
<p>A new edition should only be published if there really is NEW stuff!! (I was talking to a teacher and they said they are kind of stuck when new editions come out because the school will not have enough old ones on hand for every student so they are pretty much forced into the new ones).</p>
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<p>The <em>ahem</em> “problem” from the nasty, mean publisher’s point of view is that by the second or third year there are so many * used * copies of the text running around that they are worried that they’re no longer getting their fare share of the revenue. The publisher, after all, only make money on * new * texts.</p>
<p>As a math prof who’s disgusted with both the cost and frequent edition changes of the standard three semester calculus texts, I have great sympathy for the students. I do look at text book prices and I will reject texts that I ordinarily would love to teach out of just because I think the price is outrageous.</p>
<p>The only example i know of why to buy new (my japanese class) is because the older issue dates back to 1996 and doesn’t have the online stuff my professor is so fond of doing.</p>
<p>Oh and my other pet peeve. When Universities have a personalized version of a textbook made, making it impossible to buy used. My daughter’s school did this with a calculus text book. She was only doing 1 semester of Calc but had to buy the Universities personalized version of an otherwise easily available calculus text book. The book went through 3 semesters of calc and it was made as loose leaf pages that you had to put in a folder and the bookstore would not buy it back. The school tried to say it was cheaper for the students than the easily available version - true if you were buying the easily available version new and were doing 3 semesters and did not want to keep the book! That one really burned me.</p>