Question: Why are my textbooks so expensive? I paid $100 for one book. I'm taking six classes, and some use more than one book.
Answer: You're right. Textbooks are too expensive. But don't worry - they're disappearing. Most publishers will switch soon to e-books - the electronic version of textbooks - and reduce the price of a $100 textbook to $50 or $60.
Many readers of this column have had questions about textbooks, so let's shed some light on this issue. Here are the players in this field:
1. Authors: College professors write the textbooks. Typically, they spend about two years to write an "Introduction to French" book, for example.
They do it on their own time. At nights, on weekends and during summers, when they're not on the university payroll, these professors keep writing to meet publishing deadlines. Then each of the chapters is sent to dozens of other professors around the country who may teach French, so they can review it. It's an exhausting, time-consuming experience, but also rewarding. These authors typically get a royalty of about $8 per $100 textbook.
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2. Publishers: These companies employ thousands of experts with titles such as editors, copy editors, development editors, marketing managers, manufacturing supervisors, electronic art supervisors, senior designers, photo research supervisors, image-permission supervisors, cover designers and so on.
Publishers' representatives encourage professors across the nation to use that textbook. It's a labor-intensive business, and therefore, the costs of introducing a new book could run in the millions of dollars. If enough professors don't order the book for their courses, the publisher suffers financially. The publishers typically make about $52 for a $100 textbook.
3. University bookstores: These are independent companies that have contracts with universities to manage bookstores. If you've been to a college bookstore lately, you'll notice they not only sell textbooks but also computers, cookies, calendars and candy. Their share of the $100 textbook is about $40. Their risk is that some students don't buy new textbooks. Thus, the bookstores get stuck with unsold books.
They also sell used textbooks, which upsets the authors and publishers, because neither makes a dime.
The Future: E-Books
The most effective way to reduce the cost of textbooks is to produce them as PDF computer files, and let students download them for about half the price of a printed book.
College students are becoming familiar with e-books. I predict they'll soon prefer it. Even though the price and royalty per book will decrease, authors will make that up with more sales.
There will be no used textbooks, so the authors will receive their 8 percent royalty on every e-book sale.
Similarly, the publishers will make more money, since every sale will be directly from them. Publishers can bypass the bookstores. Students can download the texts directly from the publishers' websites.
In addition, the publishers will reduce their production costs substantially because printed books will be eliminated.
So what happens to the bookstores? They'll continue to sell computers, cookies, calendars and candies, but not textbooks.
As you can see, the market is finding its own solution to the rapidly rising costs of textbooks.
Another benefit of e-books is that they allow authors to make last-minute changes to keep them fresh.
Ethical dilemma
Some professors have an ethical dilemma: They've written a textbook and required it for a class they teach.
They don't want their students to think they're requiring it so they can benefit financially. They want the students to understand that they believe the book is the best one available.
Here's what one of my colleagues does: She donates the royalties from her classes to the university's student scholarship fund, and she tells her students.
Dean Ali Malekzadeh, a former administrator and faculty member at Arizona State University, is dean of the Williams College of Business at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Send him your questions and stories about college at askthedean@gmail.com Please include your name and hometown for possible publication.
