Why do textbooks cost so dang much?

[spingears]

@Cheesesteak

Saying it is all a scam is a bit harsh. To give a kinder-gentler spin on it, I’d prefer to say it is very inefficient.

How many kids do you have in college? What is your personal involvement?
Some of the above posts read like the posters are shills for the book publishers!

Harsh? H… Yes! It’s a scam perpetuated by those in a position to either profit or correct and choose to leave well enough alone as the path of leasst resistance. To term it as inefficient is being more than kinder-gentler, more like soft hearted or soft headed.

I had opportuinity to talk, at lunch today, with the parents of three daughters in college in West Tennessee. Their view too is that the current textbook system is an out and out scam with few exceptions. Tuition is already out of sight and annually or quarterly revised textbooks are a unnecessary financial drain.

There is absolutely no reason but greed to revise standard subject undergraduate text books oftener than every five years for most subjects and those in need of revision could easily be covered in a THIN supplement. But then there wouldn’t be the tidy profit in that kind of book, would it?

[Cheesesteak]

@spingears

There is absolutely no reason but greed to revise standard subject undergraduate text books oftener than every five years for most subjects and those in need of revision could easily be covered in a THIN supplement. But then there wouldn’t be the tidy profit in that kind of book, would it?

I agree that the honorable way to publish these books is to have a solid text and offer cheap supplements as necessary, but the fact they do it differently is not evidence of scamming students. I lack specific knowledge of the operating environment for publishing textbooks, but I’ll try to give you the gist of why I think it’s very possibly just the nature of the market. Note, please, that I don’t want to suggest that students aren’t getting royally screwed with the ridiculous cost of textbooks, I was a student myself not TOO long ago, and it sucked then too.

If (notice this is only if) these publishers are pulling in profits comparable to their non-textbook peers, I would doubt that textbook pricing is a scam. If the market, by its nature, forces the textbook publishers to put out dozens of unprofitable texts for each popular one, then the consumer will wind up footing the bill for the money losing products.

Sure, we can say, don’t put out as many bad products and make the good ones cheaper, but what company can do that if they can’t tell the bad from good until they hit the market? Cut back on new product and you might just find yourself in a slow death.

I’ve been involved in businesses that make huge profits in one area and lousy profits elsewhere. Were we screwing those high profit customers? Maybe, but without them, the business couldn’t earn enough to keep afloat. Could we drop the lousy lines? Maybe, but if they are strategic lines, we might lose many of our profitable customers, and be screwed ourselves.

I don’t like defending them, but before I label someone a scam artist I want facts to show that they could give the students relief without tanking their business. I think the facts so far are pretty murky on that point. It’s clear that the students are getting the shaft, where the blame belongs isn’t as clear.

[threemae]

@Cheesesteak

Saying it is all a scam is a bit harsh. To give a kinder-gentler spin on it, I’d prefer to say it is very inefficient. Generally, in competitive markets, one of the best ways to get the consumer dollar is to give them more value (or perceived value) for that dollar. Consumers demand it, and are will give you money if you give them value.

Students are in far too weak a position to demand anything of the publishers, so the effort to get sales does not include high value for students. As a result, we don’t get cost efficiencies directed toward the consumer. In a desperate attempt to get some winning texts, they throw out dozens of texts hoping one will catch one and actually be profitable, making up for all the failures, this is very inefficient. There is a lot of effort going into books that don’t sell, so the other books have to be overpriced to the point of screwing the students for the publisher to be profitable.

A textbook that had high student value would probably have:
Well made primary book
Simple, paperback, disposable, question book which can change yearly
Updates/expansion to the text done in backwards compatible fashion, so the primary book does not immediately go valueless. Keeping subjects in the same chapters and in the same order will help immensely.

I can agree with this post. No, it’s not Stalinist Russia, but not exactly a free market either. If they would simply do the stuff mentioned at the bottom, I’d be totally happy.

Totally changing the questions in Carey for no reason what so ever just blows my mind, especially considering that they didn’t even bother to proof them effectively.

Now onto nonsuch’s defense of Carey 5th Edition:

NEW! Chapter 1 has been retitled Structure Determines Properties to better reflect its purpose and rewritten to feature a detailed treatment of acids and bases. Rather than a review of what students learned about acids and bases in general chemistry, Sections 1.12-1.17 discuss acids and bases from an organic chemistry perspective.

Absolute BS, there’s no real difference here except for using one more O-Chem example.

To accommodate the new material on acids and bases in Chapter 1, the orbital hybridization model of bonding in organic compounds has been rewritten and placed in Chapter 2. In keeping with its expanded role, Chapter 2 in now titled Hydrocarbon Frameworks: Alkanes.

Pointless reshuffling. A general description of MO theory doesn’t belong with alkanes and intro to naming. This actually made the text worse, but of course, also harder to use in conjunction with the 4th edition.

Chapter 13 Spectroscopy has been supplemented by an expanded discussion of 1H and 13C chemical shifts and a new section on 2D NMR. A NEW box, Spectra By The Thousands, points the way to websites that feature libraries of spectra and spectroscopic problems of every range of difficulty.

Again, no real difference here except for one box and a single god-damned URL that every single researcher already has if they are going to be doing real synthesis or lab work. Inappropriate for undegrad O-Chem.

Chapter 27 has been shortened by removing material related to nucleic acids and its title is changed to Amino Acids, Peptides, and Proteins.

They’ve deleted stuff. Nice.

NEW! Chapter 28 Nucleosides, Nucleotides, and Nucleic Acids is new. Its presence testifies to the importance of these topics and the explosive growth of our knowledge of the molecular basis of genetics.

And apparently added it back in here. Again, nothing in nucleoside/nucleotide/nucleic acid science that has actually gone into this book or any other undergrad text was discovered after the 4th edition. Result: more pointless shuffling.

Pedagogy
NEW! The continuing positive response to the generous use of tables in Organic Chemistry, has encouraged us to create new ones. The new tables are:

Table 1.6 VSEPR and Molecular Geometry
Table 1.7 Dissociation Constants (pKa) of Acids
Table 2.5 Oxidation Numbers In Compounds With More Than One Carbon
Table 28.2 The Major Nucleosides in DNA and/or RNA

4 tables? 4? 28.2 looks worthless and 1.7 is something only useful as a reference. The 4th edition had smaller versions of both 1.6 and 1.7 that gave useful examples without just copying a couple of pages from the chemical references. Again, an update that has more likely than not made the book worse rather than better.

NEW! The number of boxed essays has been increased to 39 with the addition of:

Electrostatic Potential Maps
Curved Arrows
Ring Currents—Aromatic and Antiaromatic
Spectra By The Thousands
Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) And COX-2 Inhibitors
Oh NO! It’s Inorganic!
“It has not escaped our notice…”
RNA World

Please, an entire essay on EPM’s and curved arrows? The NSAID one was interesting, but not quite sure that it necessitated an update.

The Learning By Modeling CD developed by Wavefunction, Inc. in connection with the fourth edition of this text accompanies the fifth as well. We were careful to incorporate Spartan so it would be a true amplifier of the textbook—from the author creating the Spartan images used in the text to directing the student to icons in the text that identify opportunities to build models of their own or to examine those in a collection of more than 250 already prepared ones.

A number of NEW end-of-chapter problems have been added.

Art Program

Instead of limiting molecular models to figures, “bonus” models have been integrated into the body of the text in places where they reveal key features more clearly than words or structural formulas alone can. (See page 196.)

NEW! Attention is paid to the nodal properties of orbitals throughout the text in order to foster an appreciation for this important aspect of bonding theory. (See Figure 2.16 on page 90.)

The 4th edition had perfectly adequate diagrams, rather than just copying an EPM from Spartanview every ten seconds, it had clearer and more demonstrative examples.

Media

Learning By Modeling for building, examining, and evaluating molecular models specific to organic chemistry.

NEW Essential Study Partner (ESP) interactive student tutorial.

Improved Online Learning Center website for instructors and students.
NEW Mechanism Animations CD-ROM for the instructor.

Good. I’m really sure that my instructor, with 20 years of O-Chem research at a leading chem. department really needs those mechanism animations.

And you still cannot justify scrambling the old problems beyond forcing people into the new edition…

In conclusion: textbook industry=still bastards.
:rolleyes:

[Mathochist]

@HPL

In some subjects(Recent History), I can see why you’d need to have the most up-to-date textbooks. But does the Field of Mathematics change so much every 5 years that you need to issue new textbooks for Calc and below?

In all honesty, no, the field doesn’t change. What changes are the currents of pedagogical fashion. Some, like calculus reform movements, have been grinding forward since the 70s. Some, like the “math wars” are the result of nonmathematicians deciding that they should raise a huge stink about how math is taught from a sociological perspective.

Yes, the updates are faster than maybe they should be, but it’s really not all math’s fault.

[syncrolecyne]

Where I live, many students go to Mexico to have them copied, then return to refund the books. Its pretty common to see students carry binders instead of a proper ‘text’ around. But I’ve noticed lately, many textbooks here are now sold wrapped - and no refund will be given if the wrap is broken. Part of the reason may be CD ROM and other inserts - but I suspect it is to guard against copying as well.

I don’t think anyone’s advocating that at all, but it is a common practice here - and I bet many campus towns have that going on behind closed doors as well.

My main annoyance is the low prices textbooks are bought back for, if they are bought back at all. And where do all of these “out of date” textbooks go? Maybe if they were being sent to universities in Bangladesh, I’d feel better about the whole system.

[Nonsuch]

@spingears

Nonsuch: You have misquoted me more that once in your last post #56. Some of the quotes you attirbuted to me were made by others, not me.

You’re right, I apologize. Lazy with the cut-and-paste.

@spingears

The curent textbooks system stinks & I suspect that deep down you also agree.
Take the time to read and comprend what I have stated above and compare with post #56!
I could be all wet but I think not.

I read your post, and the situation as you described it therein is definitely fishy. But it’s not at all typical; most students have no trouble finding used books or importing cheaper alternatives, and the industry’s sales trends back that up.

I’ve been repeating myself for a while here, and some of you evidently a) want to go on believing that textbook publishers are heartless criminal pricks out to part you from your very last dime, and/or b) believe I’m nothing more than a paid shill. So I’ll state (or re-state) a few final points, and you can choose to believe me or not.

1. Are some textbooks revised more often than they need to be? From a strict pedagogical standpoint, some certainly are—but the needs of the market and the needs of the subject are not, alas, always congruent. Textbook publishers compete with each other, and an edition that has gone too long without substantive revision becomes increasingly vulnerable to takeaway business from competitors.

2. Insist all you want that teaching supplements are worthless add-ons created only to inflate the price of the book—the fact is the market (i.e., your professors) wants these things. If they didn’t, no one would make them. I’m not guessing about that; it’s a fact. I don’t understand why this is such a difficult idea to accept.

3. Textbook companies realize that books are expensive. Most publishers are investigating ways to deliver text content more cheaply, via the WWW or e-Books or wireless downloads. The market for these venues is still in its infancy, however. Right now, the demand is still for textbooks—and unfortunately, for a pedagogical style of textbook that can be very expensive to develop. A textbook publisher can’t go into a prof’s office and expect to sell a product the prof doesn’t want.

4. I suppose this needs to be said: I’ve participated in this thread strictly of my own volition, and I’ve reported only what I’ve learned through my own observation, not some official set of industry talking points.

Mostly, it comes down to this: textbook publishing is a business. Most textbook publishers are publicly-owned corporations with responsibility to maintain growth for their investors. Maybe that’s not how it would be in an ideal world, but that’s how things are and that’s how they’re going to stay.

Does the “system stink,” as spingears says? Well, it’s certainly unfair that students aren’t free to choose alternatives at the beginning of the semester—but how do you correct that? Deprive professors of the right to choose the books they want to teach from? Force them to teach a course that’s compatible with a certain minimum number of competing texts? That may save you some money, but I guarantee it’s going to leave you with a lousier course, and some pissed-off instructors on top of it.

What else? Regulate the industry? That may happen eventually, but I don’t see how regulation will avoid leading to inferior products. Cap profits and you have less capital to invest in development and author recruitment, and competition from used books will still be there. Without recourse to raising prices, publishers will be forced to cut even more corners, and within 10 years of this vicious cycle your books will look, and read, like shit. Or maybe we could regulate the used book industry too—how do you suppose a student would feel on discovering that the used book company can only buy back, say, 5% of the print run of a particular edition, and that that fat econ book he paid $75 for is now toilet paper?

What about the industry itself? Would it be so bad if publishers revised, say, every six years instead of every three? Maybe not—until your competitor starts attacking the markets you’ve left to lie fallow and gradually boots your ass out of them. Earnings start to slide, market share starts to dip, investors start to get pissed; maybe some people get laid off, new market opportunities go untapped or certain titles are quietly allowed to die. Upshot: the publisher can’t survive doing business like that, and a textbook industry in constant upheaval is not a cure for rising prices.

And I’ll add one final thing, and this is the hand-to-God truth: when I see some of the books my company makes, I’m amazed the textbook industry makes any profit at all. I don’t see any but a small few of you who seem to have the first clue of what it takes to develop and produce a textbook; it’s an absolutely enormous undertaking, and one that can easily fail, sending millions of dollars in development down the toilet. You say that’s not your problem? If you want things to change, than yes, it is your problem. The first step toward change is examining the issue dispassionately and seeing the forces affecting all sides, not just your own; spouting off that publishers are bastards and quasi-mobsters achieves … what exactly?

Carry on with your discussion.

[Sigene]

Okay so the publishers have been taking a hit here; but…

A big part of the problem that hasn’t been addressed is the responsibilty professors have to their students. Like I said, if I had my choice, I wouldn’t force my students to buy the newest edition of texts; they just aren’t that different. and I can’t justify to my students the cost.

I wouldn’t call the college book adoption committees bad names; but they are part of the scam, and are not considering the cost of a new book when they make their choices. They are just afraid of having the college labeled inferior if they have a bunch of old texts