True, but that ignores the reality of the marketplace. Many professors like to stick with a particular textbook for a few years, so they don't have to continuously revamp their lesson plans and exams. So let's say I sell the real book to a Summer 2011 semester student, and that person sells it to a Fall 2011 semester student, and that person sells it to a Spring 2012 semester student, and then the professor decides to use a different textbook. I bought the real textbook online for 65-70% of the list price, and I bet the online bookstore made money on the book, so the publisher got less than 65-70% of list from the online store. If it's used for only one more year past this semester, that's potentially 4 students who use the book, with no additional royalties to the publisher. 70% of list, divided by 4 students, is 17.5% of list per student. The publisher would have come out ahead by selling an e-book to each of those students for 20% of list. That also assumes there's no concurrent use of the real textbook.WildBill wrote:I think that it's more about royalties and licensing fees than the true cost of "manufacturing" and distributing.Shoot Straight wrote:The publishers really need to get e-textbook costs down to 10-20% of the real thing to make them competitive.
It's true the publisher can charge whatever they want for the e-book, but students also have options.
However, the economics are very different for K-12 textbooks, which are often owned by the school rather than purchased by the students.
