I hate buying a textbook only to have the class that the teacher says you “NEED” the book, but he/she regurgitates the book into your notes and tests are only on the notes. Such a waste of money it pisses me off.

Medical students, and certain other sciences usually use some text books, but even these are available on the University on-line library.

When I attended ASU, all of my classes where the same….you bought a text book that was *required* for the course, then got to class and discovered that the Prof. or student aid that taught the class used lecture notes, NOT a textbook. You took notes, and all exams were based on the lecture notes. Texts were useless, unless you actually wanted to learn the subject and read them on your own. Then you sold the texts back to the book store for 10% of purchase price, never opened.

Approx. wholesale cost to print 5000, 672 page 7.5″ x 10″ hardcover chemistry books, full colour on dull coated paper:

Composition: $100,000
Printing of 21, 32 pg signatures: $120,000
Paper: $17,000
Bindery: $65,000

Sub TL: $302,000
40% markup (profit, management, distribution)

Net price before tax and retail profit: $85 each
Double the order to 10,000 books: Net price $59 each
50,000 books: $39 each

Doesn’t include fee and royalties for the author.

G’night

Composition: $100,000
Printing of 21, 32 pg signatures: $120,000
Paper: $17,000
Bindery: $65,000

Sub TL: $242,000
40% markup (profit, management, distribution)

Net price before tax and retail profit: $68 each
Double the order to 10,000 books: Net price $51 each
50,000 books: $39 each

Doesn’t include fee and royalties for the author.

Rant: Some Universities teach mathematics and others use mathematics as a screening process to prevent students from pursuing engineering or other hard sciences. “Mr. Einstein, you may be interested in physics, but your grades in Calculus II were below what we expect, so we have decided to give your spot to a guy with good grades but no aptitude for physics whatsoever. Good luck at the Patent Office.” The University of Washington is firmly in the latter category and really needs to reevaluate the way that it teaches undergraduate mathematics.

Adding to a text in digital format is Easy, IF you want it to be.

Selling books on CD, at $5-10 EACH…
Sell the program to READ the CD, $100..

How can i get in on this class action lawsuit?

I can’t see ebooks becoming popular. They are static and hard on the eyes too.

Part of this you can blame on Ronald Reagan, but not all. Reagan’s big tax cut bill (which, incidentally, raised my taxes on my graduate student stipend by $900/year) involved a few other things as well, one of which was a radical change in the way taxes were assessed on book publishers. Previously, they paid tax on sales only. Reagan changed that to a tax on inventory. This forced publishers to change their business model. On subjects like calculus and intro physics that don’t change very rapidly, they would make massive print runs, stick them in a warehouse, and dole them out over many years. For example, the intro physics book I used in 1977 was Halliday and Resnick, which had just been published in the second edition. The first edition was published in 1966. I paid about $20 for the book, and about $100 total for all my books that semester. Immediately after the tax law change, the price shot up to about $75.

It was at this point, I think, that publishers had a epiphany: short print runs and rapid edition turnover dramatically reduces the used book market since what they are selling is out of date — same size market but an instant increase in share. Today, the typical revision cycle is 3 years and, in rapidly moving fields like astronomy, 2 year. I think that is a bare minimum. You can’t write a book any faster unless it is the only thing you do. Electronic distribution won’t change that.

Electronic distribution also does not afford the right usage patterns. The way a scientist reads a book or paper is to sit down with pencil in hand and fill in the gaps, derive equations, extrapolate ideas into possible other research avenues, and so on. My books are filled with marginal notes. That is worse than inconvenient on a book reader, it is often altogether impossible. The files are locked down by rights management and even if they weren’t, it is a pain in the ass to write equations on a computer.

I frequently read electronic versions of journals now and I’m amazed that I ever got along without them. Indeed, arXiv is now the primary means of communication among working physicists. This is not, however, due to any inherent advantage of the electronic format. It is purely a matter of convenience: communication is faster, and you don’t have to walk to the library. My usage pattern, however, is still paper based — I print the articles so that I can annotate them. I have multiple books and articles open on my desk simultaneously so I can cross reference. All of them have marginal scribbles. Try doing that with an ebook of any stripe.

Like it or not, paper books are going to be with us for a while longer. Ebooks should be thought of as a different medium altogether, not the same medium dressed up in a new suit. The actions that the reader can take are different. There is one market, however, where I think ebooks offer a real advantage — K-12. With schoolbooks, you get in trouble for doing the things I do to my books. And it can’t be good for a child’s back to be hauling a bookbag that weighs as much as the child. They look like humpback whales going down the hallway.

This probably won’t happen with any rapidity for one good reason — the marketing gurus at publishing houses. They see an opportunity to exploit DRM to lock in buyers to using their full product line only. Imagine a book reader that only reads Glencoe books and you’ll get the picture. Great for the balance sheet, terrible for the school district.