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Textbook
price breakdown
Why college textbooks are so expensive?
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College textbooks are expensive. Everyone knows that. But not
everyone can tell you why they are expensive. The campus bookstore
is easy to blame, because that's who gets your money. College
bookstores typically make a 20% or 25% profit on new college
textbooks, which is not actually that high a profit margin for a
retail business (by comparison an apparel retailer might make a 50%
or more profit on selling clothes). Most of the college bookstore's
profit comes from used
textbooks and other
merchandise, including clothes, gifts, etc. When you buy new
college textbooks, roughly 80% of the retail price goes directly to
the textbook publisher. Of that amount, approximately 20% goes to
printing expenses, 10% to marketing, 5% to distribution/shipping
costs, 5% to the
author(s), and 5% for various other costs. This leaves roughly
35% net profit for the textbook
publisher. Keep in mind this is a general example and that these
numbers are estimates. Nevertheless, you can see that a large part
of the high retail price translates directly into publisher profits.
It's no secret that book publishing is a profitable business, and
the college textbooks industry is no different. What can you do?
Well, the obvious thing is to not buy any college textbooks and
"share" with a classmate. Although this might work for some classes,
we don't recommend it if you are serious about school (and we're not
just saying this because we're in the textbook business). The best
thing to do is to buy used textbooks when you can. Besides the fact
that used textbooks are cheaper, by buying used textbooks you're
essentially refusing to support the publisher's high profits on new
college textbooks. The publishers hate the used textbooks market
more than anyone, because they only make money on new textbooks.
When you buy used textbooks, the profits go mostly to the bookstore
you buy from. By buying used, you are reducing the demand for new
college textbooks and in the long run this might serve to bring down
the price of new college textbooks. |
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price in
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