does a textbook company kick any $$ to professors or schools?

[vash]

why does every professor seem to need the latest edition of some textbook? an edition a few years old would save kids alot of money, by allowing them to buy used..what gives?

inside scoop?

[Joe Bob]

A lot of profs write there own books...

[Head416]

I don't have any evidence, but I'm sure they do. At the very least, they lobby for their text, take them out to lunch, etc. It's such a racket. They come out with new editions every couple of years, and the school moves to the new edition (which means no used books available, must pay full price) even though there is NO NEW MATERIAL!!! They rearrange some chapters, and change the questions so you have to have the new book to do the homework. Page numbers referenced will be different, etc.

Why would the school go along with it, costing the students all sorts of money, making them angry, etc, if they weren't getting something out of it?

I hate the textbook industry!!!! I had a professor tell me he wanted to write a textbook, but decided against it because they would only publish it if he committed to producing revised editions every couple of years.

[stomachmonkey]

You answered your own question.

One of my 1st gigs was in the book industry.

You'd be shocked at how much incorrect information gets published/printed. Takes about 3 editions to get them right then it's time for a new one anyway.

I have a model to address that very issue as well as some others that plague the the industry. Just wish there were another 48 hours in each day so I could get thru all my projects.

[porsche4life]

No joke... I just bought text books.... 369 for 3 books... Grrr!

[Tim Walsh]

My Pop's a prof at a large state school. No kickbacks for him personally as far as I know, BUT the author does get a nice kickback and is required to publish a new edition every so often(not sure how often though). BUT the major courses are standardized so all prof's/instructors use the same book, and that means that the book vendor may woo the dept head. The other more likely option is the book store.. They're a HUGE racket here. Dad writes the lab manual(he's a Chemistry proffesor) and the difference between what he(really the on campus publishing service) sells the book for and what the bookstore charges is HUGE! something something captive audience something.

Sid,
3 books for ~370? Sounds pretty light to me. My Calc book was $200 alone 10 years ago! My wife's stats book for this semester is about the same.

[legion]

One of my best friends is a textbook salesman.

Yes, the authors get huge kickbacks.

Yes, they wine and dine whoever is in charge of selecting textbooks.

Yes, most "new" editions are simply rearrangements of old editions with minor corrections.

What you probably didn't know is that the publisher will buy back used books from professors and book stores at up to 75% of new price. This ensures that the new books get adopted and the old ones disappear quickly. The bookstores have the racket of reluctuntantly offering students $5 for a $150 book because a new edition is coming out--while they are going to get $113 from the publisher for turning that book in--down pat. I kept all of my college textbooks because I wanted the knowledge and it at least deprived the bookstores of some money.

So, if a text book is new, it sells for $150. Bookstore paid maybe $100 for it, so $50 profit right off the bat. But it gets better, they will buy back that text book two more times for $75, and resell it two more times for $100. That's a running total of $100 profit on an item that cost them $100, or 100% profit. And it gets better, because the bookstore will buy back that book one final time for something like $5, and publisher will buy that book back from them for $112.50. That puts the net profit on the same text book at $207.50, or 207.5% of the original cost.

And industries like petroleum where they struggle to make a 10% profit are the evil ones.

[stuartj]

Its a scam. Especially when the course leader has written, then spcifies the text. It took me till about my 13th year university to work this out and just buy last years book for 10%.

[BRPORSCHE]

I can't wait till I can download my textbooks onto a kindle like machine. That will be the day.

I hate the book companys.

[Head416]

I've bought digital texts a couple times. They cost me about 75% of the price of the physical book.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

15 years ago I was paying 70-120 for textbooks. Looks like the prices have kept pace with the economy.

I was blessed with at least 2 professors that eschewed the idea of the textbook. On the other hand I had to lug a laptop into class to keep up with the note-taking speed necessary to catch everything in their classes.

I had another professor that published a text book but put perforated "cheat sheets" in the back of the text. There was ZERO secondary market for the book as a result--none of the book stores (campus or otherwise) would buy them used. Even if the pages were intact.

[Rick Lee]

I actually did ok selling used books back in college. I often got up to 1/3 of my money back. But then I wasn't in engineering or med. school, so my books weren't too ridiculously expensive. It was still a racket though and I had no problem buying an older edition of the assigned book if I could find it. I would think Craigslist and eBay would drive the prices down a little, but they didn't exist when I was in school.

What really sucked was my prep school required us to buy our own books and they all came from the Princeton Univ. Store. I got clipped for those college book prices in high school too and my folks made me pay for them myself as part of my own contribution to the insane cost of private school. Luckily, I got paid by the state for driving myself, my sister and her friend to that school each trip due to some archane civil rights-era busing law. So I made out ok once I had my license.

[HHI944]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

No joke... I just bought text books.... 369 for 3 books... Grrr!

I've bought single geomorphology books that cost nearly that much.

[Embraer]

i just used to go to the ungraduate library, and photocopy each page of the books. copies were 10 cents a page. it was cheaper. My 400 page Calc book was $40 instead of $200

[Embraer]

...and on the same note, i was the building manager for my college's student union. the number one crime: ...stealing bookbags. not for the money, mp3 player, or other stuff in them...but to sell the books back to the bookstore.

[vonsmog]

I had a prof. in college that used the book that he wrote to teach the class. Cost of the book was $12.00 Just enough to cover the cost of printing and shipping. He stated that he made zero money off of it, and that the publisher said he was crazy and that he was throwing away thousands $$. So when you pay that big $ for a book you are just making the author richer and just that much closer to retirement!

[myamoto1]

I bought maybe 5 books in college. I couldn't justify the cost vs benefit. I'd use the library copies if/when needed. My biggest gripe was the case studies. Basically a stack of xerox copies, of original papers, that cost $100 - $200. To add insult to injury, we'd typically only use one or two of the cases. It worked out to something like $35 a page. The library didn't have copies of those.

[looneybin]

did you know they now rent textbooks
My oldest is a junior in a 4 year university & rented his books for a fraction of purchase price

[M.D. Holloway]

Authors don't get kick backs they get compensated...kick-backs are illegal, commissions are not.

The only thing a professor gets is a free desk copy. They pick the book according to what they think is relevant as well as how the book is laid out.

Book salesmen don't make enough to spice a pocket of a prof!

[legion]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

I had no problem buying an older edition of the assigned book if I could find it. I would think Craigslist and eBay would drive the prices down a little, but they didn't exist when I was in school.

I tried buying an old edition once. They literally mix up the orders of the chapters and change the page sizes between editions, so I spent A LOT of time figuring out what I was supposed to be reading/doing. And I had a lot of professors that would assign homework like this: Chapter 7, Questions 1-7, 9-12, 18. Game over when that happened.

Actually, the existence of eBay and Craigslist has forced publishers to accelerate the pace at which they publish new editions. (They have to limit the secondary market by wiping it out periodically.) This has actually enhanced their profits as they only make money when a book sells new.

When I was in college (and I'm sure this is still true now), it was actually illegal to re-import American college textbooks from Europe and Canada. I can't imagine what legitimate purpose this could serve. I recall reading about students being prosecuted for buying their textbooks online from abroad similar to how people were being prosecuted for using Napster at the time...