<p>We visited with our son this weekend, having avoided the Parents Weekend frenzy. He mentioned something which I don't recall having ever been discussed here, the issue of international text books. It seems that, like drugs, text book publishers have radically different prices for texts sold in the USA vs the same or virtually the same test sold internationally. And it seems that there are cases of publishers suing parties buying the cheap international texts and then reselling them to USA students.
However not have succeeded in court.</p>
<p><a href="http://disjointed.org/archives/2005/01/international_t.html%5B/url%5D">http://disjointed.org/archives/2005/01/international_t.html</a></p>
<p>I think this situation is unconscionable and that it is nothing more than a ripoff of our students, many who have a hard time affording college expenses. We have all known about the countless and frequent "revised" additions where usually the most significant changes are format and renumbering of chapter questions. My son took his final math class requirement this summer where the text was 4 editions removed from a text he bought on-line, The ONLY differences was the ordering of problems at the end of chapters and the prof allowed him to photograph the problem pages in his text.</p>
<p>Our son indicated that many students at RPI are on to the text book scams and are expanding the used text book market throught a service fraternity(coed and no frat house) and increasing on line buying of international texts. His house, which has 10 students has informal agreements with students from several college students in England, Scotland and Ireland to supply them with cut rate international texts. Using these techniques our son has cut the the cost of his text books by almost 66%. This semester alone, his cost for 8 texts was less than $250 where the cost at the campus bookstore would have been more than $600.</p>
<p>Oh gosh, I remember the college textbook publishing scams well. My first job out of school was in college publishing. A large staff of "Acquisition Editors" would travel the country, wining & dining professors & convincing them to come out with revised editions. Some were warranted. Most were not. Huge profits all around. I hated that industry because the market was an artificially created one, in my view. I had a pretty cool job, marketing appropriate texts to trade organizations and professional societies. Appropriate was the operative word, and the customer made a voluntary choice in deciding to purchase.</p>
<p>One interesting point about international sales: My brother-in-law told me that in German med schools, all the kids would buy English versions of the texts because the price was about 1/4 of the German language version. I was impressed that kids could have such a high level of fluency in their second (or third) language.</p>
<p>The differing prices of international editions of textbooks have to do with contract law. The author usually has a royalty contract that covers all sales in North America. The publisher usually contracts with a printer for North American editions which may have a union contract with the printers union. Editions priced at the normal North American level are much too expensive to have any market at all in developing countries. But if the publisher provides a photostat of the book to an overseas printer, producing the book strictly for the local market, readers there can get it at an affordable price, and that doesn't encroach on the publisher's contract with the author nor with the probable arrangements with the North American printers. What's cheating is when the inexpensive books cross back into the original market, thus denying the author royalties and local printers the chance to make union wages.</p>
<p>My son discovered international versions a couple of years ago - I believe he buys them on line. As I recall, he said one difference with the US version was that the international versions were written on lower grade paper.</p>
<p>tokenadult,</p>
<p>Contract law? You mean the profs are leaving money on the table? I doubt it. I bet you most author contracts cover royalty sales anywhere. It'd be a pretty dumb prof that would not notice a "US only" clause, IMHO.</p>
<p>Next, Unions are to blame? 4X difference? yea, right. </p>
<p>No token, this is much like drug pricing or medical care. Here, the person making the decision on what book to use (or what drug to use, or what procedure to use for medical treatment) is not the one paying the bill. So the publishers (or the drug companies or the docs/hospitals) can charge as much as they can get away with. </p>
<p>The whole issue of textbook pricing is a curious one, extensively discussed on these boards already.</p>
<p>I suggest a few searches to see what'd been discussed before.</p>