General Discussion

dilby

(2,273 posts)

10. Moving the books to electronic will only so slightly reduce the costs of books.

Fri Feb 27, 2015, 02:41 PM

Feb 2015

The reason Text Books are so expensive is that the audience for them is so small so Publishers charge crazy prices to turn a profit. If the publishers sold a million copies of the books they could drop the prices down to $20 but when you are just selling a couple thousand they are going to be extremely high in price. I have technical books I buy every so often for my trade and I am paying $100-$200 for them. I hate having to shell the cash but I also realize the Author needs to eat and he is not going to be making much money when he is only selling a couple hundred copies.

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Student Groups Pressure Colleges Over the Insane Cost of Textbooks [View all] Purveyor Feb 2015 OP

I was just considering this issue the other day Man from Pickens Feb 2015 #1

They exist because they are cash cows for campus book stores and textbook publishers. tridim Feb 2015 #4

out of control is right DustyJoe Feb 2015 #2

I can only speak for my discipline: Art History. Coventina Feb 2015 #3

I remember when the *total* price of my textbooks was $68 for a semester ... eppur_se_muova Feb 2015 #5

My experience was similar. hunter Feb 2015 #8

Public universities and community colleges in particular should be switching KamaAina Feb 2015 #6

long overdue... Blue_Tires Feb 2015 #7

Cengage and Pearson got to make those precious billions, you know! Initech Feb 2015 #9

Moving the books to electronic will only so slightly reduce the costs of books. dilby Feb 2015 #10

I'd look at an open source text but I'm suspicious of them aikoaiko Feb 2015 #11