Hello Nick,
"BCS" <n...@anon.com> wrote in message
news:a6268ff5d238cba2e80afc1...@news.digitalmars.com...
Hello Nick,
(and double the
price (or more) from what would typically be reasonable)
I have been told (without supporting evidence) that the price of text
books is so high because about 10 times as many are printed as sold.
This is because they don't have time between when they know what they
need and when they need it, to print what they need. The other 90% of
the books you end up paying for get pulped.
I find that difficult (though not impossible) to believe. Most of the
academic texts out there are just new editions that have barely
anything changed, and not much content that really needs to be
particularly timely either
I'm referring to it going the other way, that the printing houses can't print
and ship enough books between the time they known how many of what books
they need and the start of classes to fill all the orders they get. So they
have to have already printed and stocked everything before the orders come
in.
(Because of that, BTW, I'm convinced the
updates are primarily done to curb the second-hand market. I've had
plenty of profs require the latest edition when the last few editions
turned out to be nearly identical). And even those updates don't
happen every single school year. The same edition is usually still the
newest for at least a couple years in a row, usually more. If they're
ending up with so much extra stock, why not just sell that stock in
the following years instead of pulping and printing new?
It's not the ones that sell that they pulp, it the flops that no one would
buy. Given than many (most?) books sold are "sure things", that paints a
very sad picture regarding the failure rate of new textbooks. If my numbers
are correct, then each year (or three) 9 times as many new text book offerings
flop as the number of books that sell, new and old.
Or, if they
really are ending up with 90% extra on such a regular basis,
maaaaayyyybbeeee it's time to re-evaluate how many they choose to
print? It just doesn't seem to add up. But then again, nether do most
things regarding academia.
I'm probably repeating my self but, it's not that 90% of each title doesn't
sell, it 90% of the titles offered don't sell and the rest sell out. Now
if someone could find a better way to guess what new offerings would be flops....
