Pricing of books...

I had to buy this book for my intro to social science class, and I just got to thinking, what is it exactly that makes an uninteresting, 160 page paperback book cost 28 damn dollars?! It’s outrageous!

Another question, is that why, when I go to a public school for free, they buy all my textbooks for me, but when I pay $24K/year for a private university, I have to buy my own books? For example, this term, I had to buy $500 worth of books! How do they expect me to afford that? I am a poor college student. Yeash!

In the case of a college textbook, the main culprit is its limited sales potential. In book publishing a lot of the cost is fixed, and low expected sales volume practically guarantees it’s going to be expensive.