A Report on the Feasibility of Textbook Rental - IBHE

pricing model (see page 12).(www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/IMM/I061215F.pdf)Pricing• For clarity, it is important to differentiate “new” vs. “used” textbook sales and pricing. Publishersand authors receive revenue only from the one time sale of new textbooks and course materials.All money from the subsequent sale of used textbooks goes to the book wholesalers, bookstoresand online sellers. Publishers’ risks are much higher than resellers – publishing is a competitivemarket and there is no guarantee that faculty will adopt the materials developed by a publisher –and publishers must recoup their entire investment in a single sale. Bookstores have a guaranteedmarket for the course materials they order because they order only those materials that havealready been adopted by faculty. And, if the bookstores order too many new course materialsthen the bookstores can return them to the publisher. These statements are not intended todiminish the contribution of bookstores but to ensure understanding of the risk and return factorswithin the market.• Page 13, para. 1, line 1 – “…factors impact NEW textbook prices…”• Page 14, para. one, line 6 “…75 cents of every NEW textbook dollar…”• The chart shown on page 14 should be labeled NEW textbook dollar distribution. AAP alsosuggests that IBHE include the figure attached in Appendix B, which visually represents the salescycle for college textbooks.Bundling• Page 15, para. 1 – “…limits the ability to purchase used course materials and sell back all coursematerials in the bundled package.” – Some packaged items are designed for reuse, such as CDsthat accompany art texts and software that is included with economics texts. Other materials,such as graded online homework and online tutoring, are purchased as consumable products foruse for a specific period of time, such as one, two or three semesters. Publishers do sell productssuch as access codes and workbooks a la carte so that bookstores can sell them with usedtextbooks.• Page 15, para. 2 – “CALPIRG…reports bundled textbooks and course materials account for halfof all textbook sales.” – AAP sales data directly contradicts CalPIRG’s assertion about bundledtextbooks. CalPIRG’s “study” was based on 50 textbooks – five each from 10 differentbookstores – out of the more than 262,000 titles currently on sale. According to AAP data, asreported by the six major textbook publishers for 2004-05, only 37% of all net print product salesare packaged products. See Appendix C.• Page 15, para. 3 – “CALPIRG reports that students did not have the option to purchase unbundledmaterials for 55 percent of the bundled textbooks studied in their survey.” Again, CalPIRG’sassertion is based on 50 textbooks and one can assume that the bookstores visited did not offerthe packaged materials a la carte because they were not adopted or ordered in that fashion.• Page 15, para. 3 – “An Illinois community college reports it was seldom offered a choice frompublishers to order bundled items separately.” – If a faculty member or department adopted atextbook package because it better ensured that students obtained all of the necessary coursematerials then publishers would abide by that adoption. However, publishers do generally offersupplemental materials that can be used in conjunction with used books.New Editions• Page 16, para. 1 – “New edition adoptions increase student costs because new textbooks are morecostly than used textbooks.” – As a blanket statement this is incorrect. New editions adoptions donot automatically increase student costs. A faculty member could choose a new edition of a-76-