Re: textbook prices (was jaw dropper)

["Dewey Dykstra, Jr." <dykstrad@bsumail.idbsu.edu>]

> Dewey says...
>
> > Actually in the 80's at the prices then current, it was estimated by the
> > publishers that the used book resales required them to up the price of a
> > new text by $7 - $10, because they had to amortize the cost of production
> > of the book over a shorter new book sales life.  This of course allows the
> > used book folks to charge more, too.
>
> Very interesting, but still I think the sale of used *promotional*
> copies has a negligible effect on prices.

probably true, but some consider the principle of the thing to be different
than the overall effect on prices

> > Do we really think it costs as much as a used book price to bring that book
> > back into the market?  If so, then the new books are not outrageously
> > priced; it seems to me.
>
> I actually think the prices of typical introductory textbooks are fairly
> reasonable, considering how large these books tend to be and the full-color
> printing (perhaps superfluous for physics, but wonderful for astronomy)
> and so on.  The books that are outrageously priced are the upper-level
> undergraduate textbooks, which aren't even that much affected by used
> book sales.  These books cost much less to produce.  They sell only a
> few thousand copies per year, which is rather low, but even this is no
> excuse for the high prices.  Since I was in college about 14 years ago
> the cost of living has risen 60% while the cost of upper-level physics
> texts has risen about 150%.  This increase has occurred even for books
> that have not been revised during this time!  It's entirely a matter
> of what the publishers think they can get away with.

Actually, in my experience the publishing industry is not that competitive
an investment.  Hence, they have a hard time raising the front money to
produce books.  At one point the upper division books with the publisher
were all in danger because the bean counters wanted to be able to guarantee
that every book published would produce a set return and the upper div
books usually lost money.  Had the subject area editors not convinced the
managers that the only way to produce upper div books was to off-set the
loss against the profits from the lower div books, at least one of the
major publishers of upper div physics texts would have quit producing them.

In my experience, in general it is not the publishers who are the problem
with texts.  They work on such a narrow margin that they are press
themselves to listen to every nuance of what any of us say about texts and
then they beat the authors over the head to make sure corresponding
adjustments are made.  Ask any author.  There's some on this list.  We
would do well to be more careful in what we say about texts to make sure
that someone responding to what we say is likely to make changes which are
actually what we want.

Dewey


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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr.                   Phone: (208)385-3105
Professor of Physics                    Dept:  (208)385-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418        Fax: (208)385-4330
Boise State University                  dykstrad@bsumail.idbsu.edu
1910 University Drive                   Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570                       novice piper

"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938
"Don't mistake your watermelon for the universe."  --K. Amdahl in
There Are No Electrons, 1991.
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