Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?

[Brad Roberts]

BCS wrote:
> Hello Nick,
> 
>> (and double the
>> price (or more) from what would typically be reasonable)
> 
> I have been told (without supporting evidence) that the price of text
> books is so high because about 10 times as many are printed as sold.
> This is because they don't have time between when they know what they
> need and when they need it, to print what they need. The other 90% of
> the books you end up paying for get pulped. (That and the fact most
> profs never worry about what a book costs when they spend your money)

The cost of printing, shipping, etc.. on a per-book basis is actually very very
low.  In the neighborhood of a few dollars.  No where near the around $100 that
a lot of textbooks sell for.  One of the reasons they cost so much is that many
of them are rev'ed every couple years, meaning that they have to make whatever
profit they want to make _fast_.  They're rev'ed so fast at least in part to
kill off the used market.

There's also an awful lot of effort that goes into producing them.  Authors,
Editors, fact checking, copy setting, etc.

Anyway, it's an ugly cycle that's bound to implode eventually.

Later,
Brad