Xref: utzoo sci.math:4950 sci.physics:4979 comp.edu:1469 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!uwvax!heurikon!gtaylor From: gtaylor@heurikon.UUCP (Ik betwijfel 't....) Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics,comp.edu Subject: the high cost of text books! Message-ID: <278@heurikon.UUCP> Date: 1 Dec 88 14:06:39 GMT References: <2219@cbnews.ATT.COM> <684@stech.UUCP> <17553@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: gtaylor@heurikon.UUCP (Ik betwijfel 't....) Organization: The Attractor Agency Lines: 58 One of the things about the business of publishing scholarly (or any kind) of books that hasn't been mentioned here and will probably only make sense to old farts *over* the 30 years during which they're making fantastic salaries is the relatively recent change in the rules for inventory. My experience has been that it's been monumentally to blame for driving the cost of some texts through the roof. Back in the old days when you didn't get chased down the street by angry mobs for admitting some interest in Liberalism, the rules on the books for accounting and tax purposes stated that you could print thousands of copies of your perhaps less than mainstream text (thus keeping your printing costs/copy somewhat in line) and then keep them in your inventory over a large number of years, getting a decent tax break on your business expenses for your inventories. If you knew that your text on Elementary Fregmolization was maybe going to move 500 copies per year, you simply ran off 2000 of them and kept a lid on your prices (since printing costs are also fluid as well). The current rules of this kinder and gentler America are now such that there are restrictions on doing that which effectively make it impossible to do. The net result has been that the small to moderate runs of scholarly texts all over the map either go out of print completely (which makes theft of said texts from libraries a crime I'd be willing to turn over to the Shi'a Islamic courts any day), or that they're printed in much smaller editions and thus subject to dramatic rises in cost per printed copy at the first run and then as the book is reprinted. Since the standard number of review copies necessary to find the people who'd actually *use* the text remains essentially the same in spite of these increased costs, the availability of review copies is also totally messed up (making it harder to find the books if you're looking for something like them). Nasty business. Of course, there was something of an outcry among a number of us back when the rules went into effect, claiming that this would have a major impact on the price and availability of everything except for Tom Clancy and Jacqueline (and, I suppose, Gardner's History of Art) Collins. The great sadness of all this for me is that I guess I was righter than I thought. One final note and essay questions: Have any of you budding analysts looked into the average profit margins of the currently constituted publishing market? While the desktop route has some real promise (and some real hazard, judging from the atrocious design and layout I've seen in a couple of "new" desktop computer and engineering texts), the business still has the usual constraints, and those margins are a lot tighter than I'll bet a number of you budding engineers would be willing to live with in *your* business life. Greg (trying to figure out whether I should use that $40 University of Chicago text on Foucault and Post-Structuralism for the seminar text or fall back on using Jean Auell's "The Clan of the Cave Bear" like I did last semester ....;-) Taylor -- the end of the road is the end of the line/the end of the line is the place in your heart/where the searchlights cut the dark and define/the place at which the fences start/over the line/over the wall/an arbitrary border/after all/you cannot move/with equal ease/may i see/your passport please/greg taylor/Heurikon/3201 Latham Dr./Madison, WI 53716/608-271-8700