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Textbook FAQ from the Columbia College Bookstore |
Textbook FAQs from the Columbia College Bookstore
Answers
Why are textbook prices so high?
Textbook prices reflect costs and a return on investment for authors, publishers, distributors, and bookstores. Textbooks require a larger investment to write, involve greater peer review, call for more comprehensive editing and cost more to print and produce than general books.
Publishers set the prices of textbooks. Publishers also require new editions about every 3 years; when a new edition is published, used books are less available forcing students to buy more expensive new books.
Where does the money spent on textbooks go?
In general, according to the National Association of College Stores, every dollar spent on a textbook is allocated in the following manner:
Why does the price of textbooks come up every year?
Textbooks are a valuable resource for students. They supplement and enhance classroom instruction, provide a common intellectual platform, offer additional references and perspectives, and are excellent review tools.
Students are rightfully concerned about the price of textbooks, but sometimes the issue is not price, but value. When textbooks are integral to a course, and faculty teach and test from them, the book is seen more as an investment and less as an unnecessary or forced purchase.
Other significant reasons are (a) sticker shock (b) frustration when books aren't used in class in the way students expect them to be used and (c) students are living on student budgets; they don’t have a lot of cushion in their bank accounts - every dollar counts.
Additionally, textbooks are free for most students until they reach college. If their book-buying experience is limited to paying $9.95 for a paperback, having to buy three or four $80 or $120 texts is a shock. After paying a substantial tuition bill, students and families are often unprepared for an additional $200 to $500 textbook expense each term.
What is the college doing about students' concerns about prices?
Because they interact with students face-to-face, no group is more aware of students' concerns about the cost of textbooks than the college bookstore. An important issue is the value of the book to a student; it affects student perception of price.
The college has formed the Bookstore Advisory Committee with student, faculty and staff representation to address concerns about costs.
What is the best way students can reduce textbook costs?
Making used books available is the single most significant way to reduce students' textbook costs. The process is dependent on receiving book orders from instructors on a timely basis and on new editions from publishers that decrease previous edition value.
How much is a used book worth when it is sold back?
Through the “buy back” process a student can receive up to 50% of the cost paid for the book. In order to receive the maximum 50%, the bookstore must know that the book will be used again in the subsequent semester (adoption) and the book must be in good condition. If no adoption information about the book is available, then the book is bought from 10% to 30% of the cost, depending on the national market value
Do publishers and authors get any royalties from the sale of used books?
No. This could be the reason publishers make authors create new editions. New editions force students to buy more expensive new textbooks.
How does the publisher decide on the cost of the book to the college bookstore?
It depends on a variety of factors, including the initial cost of the book's development; the potential size of the market; the complexity of the graphics, illustrations, the heavy-duty binding and use of color; the cost of marketing the book to potential faculty users and sending out complimentary copies; and, increasingly, the number of ancillary/bundled materials provided with the text.
What are ancillary/bundled materials?
Ancillary and/or bundled materials are additional support material publishers provide to faculty, such as videos, laser discs, software or other expensive support tools. The complexity and number of ancillaries provided by publishers to instructors has contributed significantly to the rise in text prices over the past two decades.
How important are instructors in the issue of textbook cost?
While faculty don't have a role in determining the retail price of a book, they are very important in other ways. For instance, they select the book for the course they are teaching. Also, the date when the college bookstore receives the instructor's book request has a substantial impact on the store's opportunity to reduce the cost of books to students through the buying and selling of used copies.
What other roles do instructors play?
At every buyback, textbook buyers hear students say, ...this book was worthless, I never had to open it... Instructors are the single most important factor in determining students' perceptions of the value of their textbooks. The more they integrate texts into courses, promote their value, and let students know the time and energy put into their selection, the more students will believe that they've made a good investment by buying, and using, their textbooks.
How does the bookstore set the retail (selling) price to the student?
Most major publishers sell textbooks to college stores at a net cost. College stores then apply a standard gross profit margin to the cost of the book to arrive at the selling price. Usually, the gross profit margin is 25% or less on textbooks.
Does the bookstore make a 25% profit on textbooks?
No, not at all. A bookstore pays approximately 75% of the retail price of a new textbook to the publisher and uses the remaining 25% to pay for the expenses of selling it.
Expenses include freight costs; the cost of the personnel needed to collect and research faculty textbook requests, and to order, receive, price, shelve, sell, and return unsold textbooks; and the cost of facilities, insurance, utilities, equipment, and other items. Additionally, the college receives a percentage of sales from the bookstore. The money the college receives is used to help fund all college initiatives. What's left over, about 4.5% according to NACS, is actually the store's before-tax profit.
How expensive can it be to return unsold books?
Various studies have determined that for every dollar of new textbooks returned to the publisher or other distributor, the college store (on average) pays 20 cents (actually 20.2%) to process and ship them. And the costs to publishers to accept return shipments, return the books to stock, and process store credits are similar. No one benefits from excessive returns, especially students, since the cost of returns indirectly influences textbook prices.
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