The Journal

Issue date: 3/30/06 Section: Opinion/Editorial

Earl Henry

While I enjoyed Anna Forder's article about textbook price increases and the recent practice of "bundling" supplements, I would like to address some of the realities of textbook cost not under the purview of the Illinois state legislature. First, the last decade has seen huge increases in the cost of paper and steel (machine parts, spiral binding). This is due partly to increased demand from China and other world economies and also from rising transportation costs.

I recently authored a two-volume music theory textbook series for Prentice Hall that includes three CDs and a workbook for both year-long courses. According to the publisher's Web site, the total price of Volume I text, a 3-CD set, and Volume I workbook (sold separately) is $101.20. The price with these same three items in a "Value pack" is $96.27.

Perhaps some students will never use the CDs that I so carefully produced for the publisher as supplements to assist in study outside class. While these six CDs cost Prentice Hall about $15,000 to produce, the senior editor told me that one three-CD set adds only $3 to the cost of a textbook. The savings from bundling more than accommodates the expense of these supplements.

A major factor in the high cost of new textbooks is the used book industry. When I was in college, I wanted a textbook that no one before me had touched - let alone highlighted or used as a napkin. But many students today seem to regard textbooks as short-term acquisitions to be discarded once the grades are in.

Because campus bookstores typically make more profit on a used book than on a new one, this trend is fine with them. Neither the author nor the publisher makes anything when a book is sold for the second time (try floating this idea to a realtor or the Missouri Department of Revenue). No one would deny the right of a student to recycle their books, but lurking out of immediate view is the effect on new book prices.

If the recommended retail price of my Volume I bundle is $100 (to use round numbers), the publisher sells it to the Webster bookstore for $78. This is a standard 22 percent discount. As the author, I make $7.80 on this $100 book, although I still have to pay tax and many other costs. In six years of research and writing, I spent $35,000 of my own money, so anyone can do the math. The publisher's expenses for editing, composition (typesetting), printing, binding, sales, and marketing are also figured into the book's eventual wholesale price.

The Webster bookstore, however, does not sell my $78 book for $100 (the standard 22 percent profit). Last semester, they sold the bundle for $112 - a 30 percent profit (not including another profit when the book is resold as used). I confronted the bookstore manager about this and was told that, with books available from Amazon and numerous other sources, they had to increase their on-site profit to run a conventional business (salaries, employee benefits, state taxes, and shipping, for example).

I do not begrudge the bookstore for making a profit. They offer on-site convenience, return privilege, resale opportunities and a "real person" to complain to. But these extra services, not available at Amazon, come at a price.

Largely unnecessary "revised" editions have become the publishing industry's method of coping with used books. With so many used books on the market, and with such enthusiasm from students and campus bookstores, a new edition is the only way to continue to make back costs and try to turn a profit. By the time a book has been on the market for four or five years, new book sales flop (although the book may remain successful and in use from used copies).

If more new books were bought, new editions would be based on changes in the discipline or the emergence of better pedagogical ideas - not money. In the end, while many other factors exist, the convenience of walking across the street to sell that $100 book for $40 has a much greater impact on new book prices than bundling.




Earl Henry, a professor in the music department, is a guest writer for The Journal.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools