[IP] kickbacks on text books wsj

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Bob Schmidt [schmidt@provider.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 7:18 AM
To: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:  why books are expensive

Dave, apparently kickbacks to schools is also a factor.
Today's WSJ story.


Custom textbooks...are proliferating on U.S. college campuses,
guaranteeing hefty sales for publishers -- and payments to colleges
that are generally undisclosed to students.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121565135185141235.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_pj

Best regards,

Bob Schmidt
Author, The Geek's Guide to Internet Business Success


At 03:17 PM 7/8/2008, you wrote:

>________________________________________
>From: John Levine [johnl@iecc.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 3:15 PM
>To: David Farber
>Subject: Re: [IP] Re: why books are expensive
>
> >the Dragon book at $106).   If textbooks books were available electronically
> >for download, the retailer/printer/wholesaler segments would
> mostly disappear
> >and the overall cost would be on the order of $20.
>
>Having been in the book business for a while, I also have to disagree.
>When you're publishing a book, any book, there's a big fixed cost to
>create the book, involving the author, editors, artists, typesetters,
>and so forth.  For the books I've written, which have a streamlined
>editorial process and a very simple production process (one color,
>standard design template), the cost to get a book out the door is
>still well over $100K.  Textbooks, being larger and having much more
>complex design and structure, frequently multiple colors, are probably
>two or three times that.  So a large chunk of the cost of a textbook
>is going to be the same whether it's delivered on paper or on bits.
>In view of the small retail discounts on textbooks, I doubt that more
>than $25 of a $100 textbook goes to distribution and printing, and
>anyway the distribtution cost doesn't go away if they're selling PDFs.
>
>It's pretty clear to me that textbooks that sell a lot of copies can
>be cheaper than books that sell only a few copies, since the fixed
>cost amortized per copy is less.  So a really good way for professors
>to help their students avoid textbook sticker shock is to use,
>whenever possible, the same text they used last year, and the same
>text that other professors use.  Different isn't necessarily better,
>and in this case, different is frequently worse.
>
>Regards,
>John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet
>for Dummies",
>Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor
>"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.
>
>
>
>
>
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