Tag: book

The legislature of the state of Minnesota is considering a bill authored by Wiger, Pappas, Michel, and Robling with the intent of influencing textbook prices. They appear to believe:

• textbook companies publish new books with minimal changes to encourage unnecessary adoption of more costly material
• textbook companies bundle extra products that increase costs
• postsecondary institutions can encourage a vibrant used book market.

As I understand the basic economics, extending the use of books through resale will either

• drive up the cost of the original sale further so that publishing companies and the authors they support can achieve a profit on the one time they receive compensation for their product, or
• reduce the number of competitors until a smaller number of companies can sell more copies of whatever books are still available.

Attempting to mandate the business practices of publishing companies is really unnecessary and misrepresents the scope of the issues that are involved. Extending the number of times a given book is recirculated is really dependent on the behavior of instructors. There is no requirement that instructors must adopt the current edition of a book. There are companies that collect and resell used books for years after new editions are available. Check on Barnes and Noble online for a given textbook and see if other editions are available. Every bookstore knows how to gain access to these books and this is the reason they attempt to impose earlier adoption deadlines on instructors – they want to see how many used books are available before they buy any new copies. Actually, the bookstores contribute little in this process and receive what typically amounts to a 50% markup for buying a book from a student and placing it back on the shelf. Pretty easy money when you only do this when the instructor signs the order to stock the book again. Evidently the legislators associated with this bill ignore this particular source of price inflation. Why not completely bypass bookstores and order used books online?

It is difficult to take such simplistic notions seriously and I always wonder whether legislators don’t understand or purposefully simplify complex issues to play to the stereotypes of the voters who elect them.

BTW – I am personally offended by the high price of coffee. With the exception of McDonalds, most coffee shops I frequent now charge in excess of $2.25 for a large cup of coffee. Perhaps the legislature could look into the cost of coffee.

The cost of textbooks seems to be a theme that catches may attention. My current audiobook (I listen while I do low attention tasks at work) is Anderson’s Long Tail. The Long Tail concerns the opportunities present when a system offers the flexibility to serve many individuals with many unique interests in contrast to providing the same product to many individuals. The sale of used books is an example from the book (both textbooks and rare books). As I understand the author’s perspective on textbooks, the present system works to allow students a way to “rent” books at a reasonable cost. An $80 book is typically rented by a student at a rate of $40 for the semester. The distribution system (the bookstore buybacks and online methods for exchanging used books) provide the means to rent an expensive product at this low rate to relatively small groups of students.
Anderson does discuss related topics – custom printing “on demand” to reduce the cost of maintaining an inventory of books within the tail, etc.

The NY Times “Your Money” section carried a piece on ad-supported textbooks. The columns is informative for those interested in the “cost” issue and primarily explores one solution – ad supported texts. Among the other options explained is Pearson’s ebook subscription plan (access is for a fixed amount of time).

The Times column seems to indicate that instructor independence in selecting textbooks has been an obstacle to innovation. I certainly understand why profs would not like the department or institution telling them which book or which “plan” they were to assign. I also would be somewhat concerned about requiring students to adopt an ebook. Perhaps those occasions on which both a book and ebook are available would provide the way to ease into allowing students options.

Disclaimer – I write a textbook.

Every time I encounter a piece on the cost of college textbooks I read it carefully. I am interested in the issue and agree that costs are too high. The most recent article comes from campustechnology.com and among other issues seems to be pushing ebooks.

I have nothing against ebooks. I wish our book was available as an ebook. Since this post is about cost containment, I think it is fair to claim that companies tend to invest in multiple versions of a book (a paper version, an ebook version) when the demand for a book is large (large course books) and when instructors encourage the adoption of all versions. Companies tell me the adoption rate of ebooks has yet to get to a level at which they are encouraged to go in this direction. I know there is an ebook version available for the Intro Psych book I use and it makes no difference to me as the prof which version students use. I have yet to find a student who has decided to purchase the ebook. Personally, I find it very difficult to read an ebook, but others can read for extended periods of time from a computer screen and that is great.

The part of the post that concerns me is the position of the State Public Interest Research Group (perhaps student chapter) that appears to identify book publishers as the culprit in the escalating cost of books.

Textbook publishers are the primary reason textbook prices are so high; they often add expensive “bells and whistles” such as CDROMs to their textbooks and frequently issue new but substantively similar editions that make older editions obsolete.

This or some version of this claim may be true. However, the appropriate question is why would they do this. Is it because the publishers and their authors are greedy and have found a way to rip off students? I don’t think so – in a competitive environment (trust me – the book business is competitive) a company would break ranks in an attempt to increase market share. If lowering the price would allow company to capture a high proportion of the Introduction to Psychology market, it would happen. Why are textbooks so expensive when a “trade book” with similar production requirements costs half as much? It is all about resale – companies only make money on the initial sale. Trade books are seldom resold – you may sell a few at a garage sale, but there is no industry built around the resale of such books.

Who do I think is at fault for the high cost of the books students buy? Everyone must share in the blame – publishing companies/authors, instructors, distributors, and anyone who resells a book. Who do I think takes the most inappropriate share of the inflated cost? I think it is the distributor. This may translate as your local college bookstore. This may translate as the guy in the funny van who parks on campus during finals week and buys back your books.

Here is a typical scenario. You buy an Intro Psych book for $100. At the end of the course, you sell it back to your bookstore for $50 (but only if a prof has committed to using that book the next semester). The bookstore then puts a new tag on the book ($75) and puts it back on the shelf. Very little risk (the book will be used again) or effort for $25.

In contrast, a publishing company has to look for “talent”. Encourage the talent to write a few sample chapters. Pay faculty members around the country to review the sample chapters in an attempt to deterimine if anyone will use the book for a course. Make a decision to move ahead. Provide the talent a few thousand dollars to spend the time necessary to generate the first draft of the book. Pay a reviewer (often now outsourced to cut costs) to go through the drafts. Iterate a few more times between the author and the paid reviewer. Hire a photographer for a few pictures. Send the raw material to an editor that makes the entire thing look nice. Pay someone to generate margin notes, develop an index, etc. Print the book. Pay marketing people to promote the book. Give hundreds of copies away at no expense to faculty hoping some may adopt the book, but realizing that many may also sell the book to that guy in the van I described above. Send book representatives into every nook and cranny of the country, etc. attempting to convince college faculty to buy books. etc., etc., etc.

Do students, who pay the cost, need all of these things done? Of course not. However, students don’t make the decision to adopt the book. This decision is made by the instructor and the companies must compete to get the instructor to select their products. If publishing companies don’t participate in the game, they have no opportunity to sell their product to students no matter what the cost of that product.

A few books sell. Many don’t. The book companies make money on the first sale of the successes. The same is true for the authors. I have had experience with both success and failures. I will tell you as fact that it is possible to write a book for what ends up being the personal satisfaction of writing a book. This opportunity is available to anyone. Develop a wiki if you are unable to interest a publisher.

In contrast to publishers and authors, the resellers have little risk and little overhead. The $25 they make on the buyback and resale of the $100 book comes for doing a short list of things at little risk – purchase the book from the student, store it on the shelf or in the back room until next semester, put a new price on the book, take the money from the student.

I think the campaign against the book companies is misdirected. What if students bought books directly from companies? What if students sold used books back to the campanies so the company could make the proft on the second or third sale? Competition between companies would then bring the cost of books down. Perhaps some new and creative use of the Internet will allow such selling and reselling to occur. I like my local college store (Barnes and Noble) – I purchase many books and lots of coffee there. However, I also understand what the markup is on original and also resold books.

Perhaps the world is a more complex place than you or I would like. I welcome your comment on this post (you must create an account).

I attended a session entitled “Beyond the Textbook” because I am interested in the future of books as educational resources in a digital era. It was a panel presentation and as panel presentations go a few interesting things were said, but it was difficult to pick up themes within so many perspectives.

I did pick up on an interesting resource – a special issue of Threshold (Cable in the Classroom) on this topic. I read parts of some of the articles while listening (multitasking) and bookmarked for future review.

Jeff Jarvis challenges the perception that content and distribution are not king and claims that conversation is. I have been following a series of bloggers who appear frustrated with the money schools spend on commercial resources (i.e., books). For some reason, perhaps because I write books, such comments generate in me a need to respond. Maybe this need stems from a sense of guilt. However, it is also seems possible I see the issue from a different perspective.

I have absolutely no quarrel with the notion that “the conversation” is important. Conversation, discussion, interaction, etc. are great ways to encourage the learner to think, process, integrate, etc. However, the quest of some to bring the process of education down to certain “basics can become self-promoting. In such discussions, it seems possible “others” are trying to tell the learner” what is best for him/her. In fact, as an “adult learner” I often prefer to purchase a book and not have to listen to the comments of potential teachers who may have a different agenda than my own. I can interact with the ideas of the author and I can use the Internet to locate “free” humans with opinions to test my personal opinions and stimulate my thinking through discussion. In a way, a book and a teacher are both resources intended to assist and stimulate the learner. Just for sake of argment, doesn’t it seem as accurate to claim that both free content and free conversation are available online?

I would propose a different perspective. I agree that there is a reasonable quantity of useful online and hard copy information. Information is also present in the form of content experts and in life experiences. What both good authors and good teachers do is locate and organize quality information and encourage learners to “process” this information and generate personal knowledge. In this effort, the “face to face” teachers has the opportunity to respond to students rather than having to anticipate what issues, misunderstandings, needs, etc. students may have. In most cases, the “face to face” teacher does not have the time to continually develop the background and review the potential information sources an author must consider. The author takes the risk of expending this time hoping that whatever product (a book, video, multimedia product) is generated will be regarded to be of sufficient quality to attract a reasonable number of purchases. It is a very competitive process. In fact, it is a competitive process I must engage in as an author that I do not have to engage in as a teacher. My teaching job is not constantly in jeopardy because another individual decides he or she is willing to engage in some form of competitive process for the students who might consider enrolling in the courses I teach (sounds something like vouchers).

It is easy to make “commercial” sound like a bad thing. It is true – I make some money writing a textbook. But, to be fair, I also get paid to be a teacher. Perhaps I see writing to teach and talking to teach to be more similar than others do.