Unlike what some people have stated, it isn’t that so many people are profiting from the sale; there are no more people profiting from the sale of a textbook than from any other object that you buy, and not everything is as expensive as the textbook. The problems seem to be two-fold. First of all, compared to most other books, textbooks actually sell very few copy per printing. While at your school there may be a stack of a particular book for sale, so that it looks like they are selling a lot, compared to the average book sold, a few hundred or even a few thousand sold across the country is very little. Even the most popular books don’t sell many, and they often have to cover for the majority of textbooks which sell extremely few – which may be used for an elective course at two or three schools per year, resulting in sales of 100 or less. As part of this, there is a problem with the fact that despite the fact that students complain about not being able to find used books if the book comes out in new editions every other year, especially in some subject matters the students will scream if it is apparent that the book is more than a couple of years old, complaining that the professor is outdated in his/her approach. So unlike the Stephen King novel or Harry Potter book which remains the same for decades, the publishers have to keep redoing and reissuing even the most popular books.

The other problem is lack of competition. Due to the problem mentioned above, there has been enormous consolidation of publishers over the past decade or so. When I first started teaching, books were a whole lot cheaper, and I had my choice, particularly for basic courses, of 10 or 15 different textbooks from different publishers. Now I’m lucky to have 3 for the same course. It makes it very difficult for the instructor to find a good book, and means that in many cases, a particular publisher has a near monopoly on the market, so that they can charge whatever they want to charge for the book.

These books are extremely expensive to produce. It takes a lot of time from a real world leading expert to put together a textbook. The books must then be edited carefully, again by world leading experts. Then, for most courses, there are not very many people buying the books. If the new Harry Potter book can sell for $35, I don’t see any real reason why a textbook, which is longer, filled with color illustrations, and will sell 1% as many copies, shouldn’t cost over $100. Think of the costs of NOT buying these textbooks.

You can find ways to cut 10 or 20% off the costs of the books by buying them on line, etc., but for the most part, the authors are not making a lot of money on these books, and the profit margins for textbooks are in the same range as everything else in the publishing industry.

An education is an investment for a lifetime. The books represent only a small fraction of the total costs. If you go to a public college, then most of the costs are being borne by the taxpayers, so the books might be 40% of your total expenses, but a good education is really expensive, as it should be -the people providing it should be rewarded.

Here is the problem with textbooks.

So many people are making money off the sale. First you have the team that do the research for the text (they split up their share of the profit) and they put in so much time for research they do it for the money. Next you have the publisher, book binder etc that make their cut. Then the distributor makes his cut and so does the University bookstore. The University bookstore buys back textbooks cheap so they can make another profit reselling books. But so many professors now chance their textbooks to the latest editions that it is harder and harder for students or bookstores to get money back or make a profit. The latest editions have changes and sometimes they are only minor undates but it causes the student to buy the new book when the professor requires it. That is a racket to keep them selling books. And where to all these old textbooks go? Yard sales, used bookstores, peoples garages. You can not hardly give them away, no one wants them. So they go into the landfill, what a waste.

We need to make a law that these textbooks must be used in the classrooms for at least 3 years by the Universities. That will at least help curb the racket. Every year is way too often and a waste.

I know I am tired of buying these books. I have one son still in college (5 yrs now) and I do nothing but buy him books that he can not later sell. One book can cost $300. It all adds up and I think these companies need more competition. Maybe our professiors should require the book be online. Then the prices will drop for hard cover books while the techy companies jump in to make a buck. We certainly need to do something.

It’s really not unreasonable if you consider what went into it. The work that went into writing it and checking it and reviewing it and doing all the problems, coming up with solution manuals, printing costs, and then take into account that there’s a limited audience for any given textbook (say, graduate level physics texts).

But if you want, try searching online for the international editions. They are often paperback and printed on low-quality paper – and they are much cheaper.

Good question.

Take care and i hope you find a good answer

-Mike