Choosing a Textbook for Your Course--Part 8
This is the 8th in a series of blog entries from an article I wrote last spring: EVALUATING COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS FOR COURSE ADOPTION. This post considers in depth length and price issues in choosing a textbook. © Mary Ellen Lepionka, March 30, 2006. All rights reserved.Length and Price Issues
The number of pages in a textbook is a consideration in textbook adoption if you expect students to finish reading it by the end of the course. Most undergraduate introductory textbooks are developed to be doable in 14 weeks, leaving 2 weeks for testing and other things in a standard semester. You’ll notice that these textbooks usually have 14 to 16 chapters. In this model, students master content at a rate of a chapter a week. Textbooks designed for shorter terms—8week and 12week courses—typically have fewer chapters. Highlevel textbooks and those in the sciences tend to have more chapters but often of shorter length. The industry standard for maximum chapter length is 40 book pages inclusive.
The number of pages in a book and the number of colors affect pricing. Most introductory undergraduate textbooks are under 640 pages in length (20 signatures) and are printed in 4 colors. Page counts of 576 or 608 are more common. The lower the page count, the lower the level generally, although concise editions may prove exceptional, and science textbooks at all levels tend to be longer. Secondtier textbooks for courses with comparatively high enrollments often are twocolor, and highlevel and bargain editions typically are onecolor (black on white) and largely unillustrated.
The big 4color textbooks are expensive, and the media are full of running complaints about financial (as well as physical) burdens on students with the highpriced tomes they are forced to buy and carry about. Since 2004, Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) and congressional and court actions have forced publishers to debundle textbooks from supplements and to provide alternate formats for textbooks to which students can have access. Most publishers now offer etext or web versions, for example, and shrinkwrapped threehole punched chapters for coverless delivery. Institutions also may license textbooks to deliver to students electronically at lower cost via Intranet, Blackboard/WebCT, or other means. Students buy secondhand editions in online retail and consignment shops and may even rent downloads of textbooks chapter-by-chapter to read on their laptops or hand-held computers. Thus, price alone should not guide your selection of textbook for your course.
Some instructors feel righteous rejecting print textbooks on the basis of price. Yes, they are too expensive. But it is a mistake to place the blame exclusively on the corporate greed of evil demon publishers. For example, frequent price-boosting revisions are not necessarily “fraudulent.” Revising a textbook an average of every 3.5 years (as statistics show is the case) is responsible in light of the rate of change in knowledge and scholarship in today’s world. It is not a ploy to suck more profit out of the kids. Besides, it is you who demands currency in your textbooks. It is you who adopts a more current textbook over one that came out a year or two earlier. What publisher will come to you and say, give us your business! Our book is out of date but it’s cheaper. Would you really adopt that book? Publishers must revise often just to stay competitive enough to remain in business.
Why is each new edition usually more expensive than the last? Because of the same kinds of market forces that cause you to pay a higher price for a pound of meat this month than you did last month. Because the price of a stamp went up. Because the cost of a barrel of oil went up, and the cost of a kilowatt hour. Because professional textbook development easily costs 12 to 15k. Because a single photo can cost $500 to use and a copyeditor can command $4 per manuscript page. Because the health insurance for warehouse workers went up. Because the college bookstore chains adds a big markup. Because booksellers return unsold books at the publisher’s expense. Because publishers cannot legally write off unsold inventory. Because in publishing profit margins rarely rise above 10 percent regardless. Because people sell pirated copies. And because you and your students keep selling your textbooks back to the used book merchants, reducing the revenues not only from the publishers but also from the authors who wrote them. The authors lose their royalties. Try adding up the cost of all the used textbooks for your course that are available online, and you’ll see what I mean.
No, of course publishers are not innocent victims. But they are businesses, and there are many hidden costs beyond their control. The problem is more complex with more widely shared accountability than we have thus far admitted. Fortunately, CDROMs, DVDs, the Internet, and iPod technologies are enabling publishers to lower prices without becoming unprofitable. To professors who claim that everyone should have free access to textbooks and the knowledge they contain, I say, explain to us, then, how the people who research, write, edit, produce, design, illustrate, manufacture, market, sell, store, and ship those textbooks are supposed to earn their living, buy their groceries, pay their rent, and finance their children's education.
As my (educated) daughter would say, it is what is it. If price is a highpriority factor in your textbook adoptions, please just check all the delivery options a publisher offers before axing an otherwise suitable candidate.
Labels: choosing a textbook, evaluating textbooks, Textbook pricing
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