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Book buyers (was Re: Today's jaw dropper)



On Mon, 6 Oct 1997, Rauber, Joel Phys wrote:

My guess its no more illegal than selling anything at a yard sell. The book
became my property when it was given to me, so I have a right to sell it
off.

It apparently isn't illegal, but I don't see why it couldn't be. Why
couldn't publishers simply license us the use of our desk copies with the
license agreement specifying that desk copies may not be sold.

Whenever
one of these sleazoids swings by, I make a point of loudly explaining to
any nearby student the central role of "this guy" in driving up their
textbook prices.

I'm not sure its totally fair to think of them as sleazoids (although I
confess I sometimes do). To some extent this is recycling and isn't any
more sleazy than someone coming in asking for your empy coke cans.

I may be guilty of overly dehumanizing these folks and overstating the
extent to which their practice affects textbook prices, but I do not
accept the moral equivalence of recycling aluminum and buying and selling
desk copies.

Also,
while they do drive up the price of texts when looked at from one
perspective, from another perspective they help the used book market which
costs less for students. Actually I doubt they affect the book prices much
at all, because at doubt the number of current edition books that they
obtain from getting desk copies from professors amounts to a more than
neglible amount of the used books that are for sale, most of which come from
students selling their books back to the U. bookstore or elsewhere.

As Dewey has pointed out, the used book sellers profit from the rising
prices of new books which increases their supply and allows them to charge
more with little additional expense on their own part. I see a vicious
circle in which the rising prices of new books makes it increasingly
unlikely that students will not keep them and makes it increasingly likely
that faculty members will ask for and sell desk copies. Both of these
factors shorten the profitable lifetime of any new edition and cause
prices to rise further. And so on, and so on.

It is partially for this reason that I think textbooks should abandon much
of the four color goo-gaw, the hard covers, and the truckloads of
ancillaries that are used to market them. (The other reason is that I
think most of that stuff is distracting and, ultimately,
counterproductive.) I think there is something to be said for black and
white paperback texts that are simple, well written, and fall apart after
one or two good uses. See, for example, Chabay and Sherwood.

John
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