Why are textbooks so expensive?

I’m definitely dating myself when I say that the average hardcover textbook I bought at UCLA cost around $10. New. Of course minimum wage was $1.65, and I was delighted to earn $2.74 as an admitting clerk in the UCLA Emergency Room (I learned a lot about psychology in that job, too).

Needless to say, costs of going to college have gone up, even when inflation is taken into account. In 2005, the federal government started taking a look at textbook prices, although these increased less (186%) between 1986 and the present than tuition and fees (214%).

Although I don’t pretend to understand the textbook industry, I do have some insight from the perspective of a textbook author. Many people fail to understand that the textbook publishers must recover as close to 100% of their costs as possible the first term a book is offered. Once the book hits the used book market, facilitated by the Internet, the publisher sells no more new books.

Granted this is a bit unfair. The first students assigned a new book are basically subsidizing their peers who take the course in later semesters.

I watch as students sell my book back to the Cal Poly bookstore, which pays them a pittance, and then turns around and makes pure profit on the second, third, and fourth sale. None of those sales send any money back to the publisher, who still needs to pay for their staff, production, and other costs related to the publishing of the original book.

Amazon.com has 32 new copies of my book, starting at $55. My guess is most of these are desk copies that have been provided to faculty to review for free. Whole companies exist that go from office to office buying unwanted desk copies, and some professors make hundreds of dollars doing this.

Amazon offers 29 copies of my book used, from $54.99. Some savings, right? I guess I should be flattered that many of these copies are rather worn and highlighted. Good students!

As an author, I can say that writing textbooks is terrific fun. On the other hand, it’s a huge amount of work. My first book took me nearly every spare minute I had for over five years. Normally, we would expect somebody to be paid for that. The used book market pays the author nothing.

Similar issues have occurred in other media. You can go to local stores and buy used CDs and used videogames. The people producing these media get nothing, and the store gets everything.

The textbook publishing business definitely understands the problem, and they are working feverishly to come up with new business models that work. The e-book is one such innovation, but we need to wait until students and professors are comfortable with the concept. Most people still like to have something they can carry to the beach or to the shade of a beautiful tree.