Comments on: How to Combat Textbook Sales Woes

By: 7596

7596 — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:48:53 +0000

Thanks for mentioning The Caravan Project. But I am puzzled that you weren't able to find anything more about. There has been substantial attention in all kinds of places including the Chronicle of Higher Education. You might try our site http://www.caravanbooks,org for some over the coverage and further information. Most recently, NACS has announced a major new initiative applying the Caravan principles to its retailing strategies. I also suggest you visit Shelf Awareness, a widely read publishing daily blog which had an update on Caravan this week. Peter Osnos

By: 7596

7596 — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:48:53 +0000

By: AustinRoth

AustinRoth — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:34:37 +0000

Two kids in college, $1,200 – $1,500 a semester in books between them (over $2,000 once!). And so many of them written by the professors teaching the class.

In fact, a couple of semesters ago, one of my son's engineering classes consisted mainly of helping the professor finish the next edition of his textbook. Luckily it was in a subject my son was already very proficient, otherwise it could really have hurt him in later classes.

By: AustinRoth

AustinRoth — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:34:37 +0000

Two kids in college, $1,200 – $1,500 a semester in books between them (over $2,000 once!). And so many of them written by the professors teaching the class.

By: APR

APR — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:17:53 +0000

I just paid $185 for an economics textbook! To make matters worse, it is the 4th edition this decade, so basically the authors and publisher have put out a new edition, with very minor content differences, once every other year. Unfortunately my university does not have this book on their shelves, so I was forced to buy it to complete homework assignments.

My previous university had a textbook exchange system, where books were sold for $30 (more than you could get by selling to the bookstore, much less than you could buy for), but the university, under pressure from the bookstore, shut the practice down. Very disappointing.

By: APR

APR — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:17:53 +0000

By: kritt11

kritt11 — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:51:36 +0000

Students should start their own textbook coop, where the books are swapped after use, instead of allowing the campus bookstores to get involved.

By: kritt11

kritt11 — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:51:36 +0000

Students should start their own textbook coop, where the books are swapped after use, instead of allowing the campus bookstores to get involved.

By: kritt11

kritt11 — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:50:13 +0000

Its a shameful scam, and one that we hardly ever hear about. In order to keep competitive we need highly educated workers. Yet, we sit on our tails and do nothing while college costs skyrocket, keeping some from being able to afford to go.

By: Glen

Glen — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 02:23:39 +0000

http://rightslink.org as part of http://www.copyright.com/ appears to be trying to make getting permission easier. I suspect someone will figure out something like iTunes for traditionally printed content that publishers don't want to make free. Maybe what we need is a community developed, peer-reviewed (thus controlled) textbook platform. Hook a print-on-demand service and Google Ads to it as a source of revenue. It looks like http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page and http://textpattern.com/ might be steps in that direction.

By: SteveK

SteveK — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:28:01 +0000

The textbooks come from the same cesspool that prescription drugs bubble up from. Prepping our young people for their senior years… At best.. criminal operations at worst… immoral criminal operations.

By: lurxst

lurxst — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:27:29 +0000

With 2 college students moving in and out of my house, discussion of textbooks have become a big issue. Cost is skyrocketing even on online trade sites. Publishers commonly take to putting out new editions every year, with mundane changes like design themes or simply rearranging chapters. Its less common for faculty to use the same source text for more than one year before moving on. The availability of books online through Amazon and now hundreds of other sites, was supposed to give some relief, but seems to have been no improvement or even worsened the problem.

By: PattonGuy

PattonGuy — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:17:03 +0000

Heh. Being a new college student myself, I walked into the university bookstore to get a book for my World Civ class. It was not a big book; I have lots of other books bigger than this one. Yet it cost me $51.00. Plus! Plus! Slapped all over the back of it were oodles of stickers proclaiming it to be “USED.” When a 366-page used book costs $51.00…I shudder to think what it cost as a new book. And the HOPE scholarship, which is sending me to school, mostly, gives me $150 a semester for books. I'm sorry, not enough.

By: How to combat text book sales woes

How to combat text book sales woes — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:45:03 +0000

[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptHow to Combat Textbook Sales Woes September 5th, 2008 By JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor Amid reports this week that textbook sales are down at university presses while students flock to web sites offering pirated textbooks, there’s this: If professors make chapters of a book available as e-reserves in the library, or get that material to their classes via Blackboard, students don’t need to buy the book, and the professors may get out of having to pay a permission fee to the publisher. To [...]