Why I Hate College Bookstores

[tbrown]

Back to the topic of digital books. I have found a few Kindle books that where around 20% of the hard copy costs but these were high volume books. Text Books probably get a premium due to the low volume.

They definitely get a premium. Looking on Amazon, one popular textbook has a list price around $200 and the Kindle version is $130, but you can get a new copy for less than $100 through Amazon marketplace. Used runs around $75 through Amazon marketplace resellers.

International editions are another example how textbook publishers gouge American students. They can be had for a small fraction of the US edition. Even less than the US online discounters. The only catch is you may have to wait for it to be mailed from India.

[Carry-a-Kimber]

I bought nearly all of my college text books on half.com. Books there typically cost 40 cents on the dollar compaired to book stores.

[The Annoyed Man]

Well that's just pure corruption. It literally costs pennies to reproduce an electronic file. I'm amazed.

Why? They're following a model very similar to iTunes. Buying a whole album from iTunes costs about the same as buying the physical CD. They cut down production and distribution costs, but the consumer doesn't share the savings.

What's funny about that is that I haven't bought a CD in ages. I pretty much buy from iTunes only. Where the analogy breaks down is the ability to buy single songs. I might not like all the songs on a CD. With iTunes, I don't have to buy all of them. But for me, that is neither here nor there, because the price of a CD is pretty small potatoes, so any potential cost differential between the CD format and the digital format isn't going to break the bank—whereas the cost differential between an electronic book file and the printed version is much harder to defend.

Anyway, I don't really have a dog in the hunt.....at least not at this time. As I posted previously, I can understand that textbooks would probably cost more than books of popular literature due to the difference in the unit cost of production (I have a background in the printing industry). With smaller press runs, there are fewer copies over which to amortize the fixed costs of running a press. But some of the practices described in this thread seem to be overtly usurious.....and this from institutions which are allegedly promoting education.

[tbrown]

With smaller press runs, there are fewer copies over which to amortize the fixed costs of running a press.

That sounds similar to the economics for the original run of Unintended Consequences or Monster Hunter International, or any of the books by Matthew Bracken including the recently published Castigo Cay. One significant difference is the gun-fiction authors have to write books people want to read, because I don't know any professors forcing students to buy those books. So, I think the captive market better explains the price gouging. It's a much better explanation than smaller press runs, which many authors face for their first book.

[Oldgringo]

The Universities/Colleges allow, and perhaps promote, this travesty?

There is nothing new under the sun...

Oldgringo, P.E. Inactive
U Tenn, Knoxville
BSCE, Class of '67

[gigag04]

Half.com, amazon, craigslist.

Always buy used.

[Bullwhip]

It's official, college bookstores are corrupt, and crooked.

Welcome to 30 years ago.

It's a little better now than back when. My sons going to a top private college, he has options for ebooks or regular published books he can buy at Barns & Nobles. Just a few books he has to buy from the bookstore racket, so he saves a lot of money. Funny thing, the books that change ever year are "social science" stuff. Didn't know a lot of brand new ground breaking new tech in "social science" meant they need new books ever year or semester.

[3dfxMM]

Well that's just pure corruption. It literally costs pennies to reproduce an electronic file. I'm amazed.

Why? They're following a model very similar to iTunes. Buying a whole album from iTunes costs about the same as buying the physical CD. They cut down production and distribution costs, but the consumer doesn't share the savings.

What's funny about that is that I haven't bought a CD in ages. I pretty much buy from iTunes only. Where the analogy breaks down is the ability to buy single songs. I might not like all the songs on a CD. With iTunes, I don't have to buy all of them. But for me, that is neither here nor there, because the price of a CD is pretty small potatoes, so any potential cost differential between the CD format and the digital format isn't going to break the bank—whereas the cost differential between an electronic book file and the printed version is much harder to defend.

Anyway, I don't really have a dog in the hunt.....at least not at this time. As I posted previously, I can understand that textbooks would probably cost more than books of popular literature due to the difference in the unit cost of production (I have a background in the printing industry). With smaller press runs, there are fewer copies over which to amortize the fixed costs of running a press. But some of the practices described in this thread seem to be overtly usurious.....and this from institutions which are allegedly promoting education.

There is one big cost that isn't being mentioned here. The initial and ongoing costs of the infrastructure required to support iTunes, Kindle, Nook, etc. They pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the hardware and software that is required to run one of these sites.

I am not defending their prices and I don't work for any of them, but I do work for HP so I do generally want them to continue doing what they are doing. :)

[Bulldog1911]

The professors are in on the scam as well.

I'd like to see some of that "scam" money.

I've been as shocked as anyone when I found out the prices on new books. I complained enough about the content in the old book we were using (much of it opinionated and wrong), that I was in on choosing the new book for this Fall. Far better, and significantly cheaper (paperback helps). Still not like the $15 texts I bought when first starting college, but the dollar has decreased in worth 8-10 times in that period as well.

It really boils down to what students are capable of paying. When I went, student loans were small and infrequent; I worked my way through school (so it took many, many years longer than the "norm"). As of now, far too many students have been going on student loans (and credit cards) for far too long, such that the colleges and book publishers have decided they can charge about anything they want -- with no one fighting back. In fact, the statistics show that, as of this year, student loans are the fastest-increasing category of consumer debt. A vicious spiral upwards, and it's going to come down hard in the future, because students are finally seeing that they will probably never be able to repay their college debt!

ETA: I still have essentially all of my textbooks. I believe in books, and have made good use of them (in all subjects) for myself and my family for many years. We were dirt poor, and books were mighty good friends.

I'm sure you're not one of them, but I had some professors that required us to by the "8th" edition of the book. But I can get the 7th edition that worked just fine for the students last semester for $20 instead of the $95 for the 8th edition that only changed two sentences. No, you must have the 8th edition for my class...

[jimlongley]

At one point, as a technical trainer, I had three versions of the same text, by the same author, with different covers, each in the $70.00 range, and I never found a difference in the text inside, except for a couple of corrections submitted by myself and other trainers in the same area. Luckily for our students, in our technical curriculum, our company provided the texts as part of the tuition, paid by the students' companies.

[Tamie]

I'm sure you're not one of them, but I had some professors that required us to by the "8th" edition of the book. But I can get the 7th edition that worked just fine for the students last semester for $20 instead of the $95 for the 8th edition that only changed two sentences. No, you must have the 8th edition for my class...

I'm convinced there are kickbacks involved somewhere. It may be at the university level, considering it's common that professors teaching the same class (different sections) use the same textbook. It's the explanation that makes the most sense for requiring the current edition when the subject matter hasn't changed one bit.

[wheelgun1958]

Give Bigwords.com a look.