100% Profit!

[DerHoggz]

1. Buy new textbook for cheap
2. Don't even open the textbook all semester
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!!

[Hobobob]

Problem - NEW TEXTBOOKS ARE NOT CHEAP!!!!!!!!

[MatticusMania]

Originally Posted by Hobobob

Problem - NEW TEXTBOOKS ARE NOT CHEAP!!!!!!!!

Second problem - Textbooks rarely sell for the price which you originally paid.

Even worse, when an instructor decides to use a new version of the same textbook and the book store will only give you 10% of that $100 book.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Buy used text books for cheap and sell them to new students for more than you bought em

[MakiSupaStar]

Buy a text book for 70 bucks.
Never use text book.
Sell text book for 20 bucks.

I fail to see the profit unless it came with 81 bucks worth of lube.

[DerHoggz]

I bought a book for $40 new, it is on Amazon for $180, so I was expecting it to be an international edition, but it was exactly identical to everyone else's. So, the bookstore gave me $80.

[warwick.hoy]

Don't go to college
Keep all you money out of shady student loans and overpriced textbooks
?????
Profit

[armywalaby]

Originally Posted by warwick.hoy

Don't go to college
Keep all you money out of shady student loans and overpriced textbooks
?????
Profit

This.

You know, there were a couple of times that I had to get books; the store had a particular book for $350, found the same book on ebay for $17. Soooo, yeah, there's that.

[MakiSupaStar]

You guys are lucky. We didn't have the internet when I went to college. We had 'PINE' which was kind of like email without pictures and between frumpy introverted college professors and their understudies. We also had to feed rats on treadmills to keep the lights on.

[LiquidMidnight]

The ironic part is that the people who write textbooks that sell for big dollars only get to see a very small percentage of that. I know faculty members who get checks for $1.17 a year for textbooks they've written. Edited books have more overhead, because copyright fees are taken out of the advance.

Of course, publishing textbooks does have an indirect benefit of enhancing one's CV, which is important for promotion and tenure.

[jmattbassplaya]

The funny thing is, many teachers have begun to move to online books as a way to 'help' kids save a buck or two. Unfortunately, the electronic version is typically only $40 cheaper than the physical version, you can't buy a used copy, and you can't sell it back at all. This ends up costing college students much more in the long run. You're kinda ****ed no matter what you do.

[hrodbert696]

Originally Posted by LiquidMidnight

Ha ha! I taught at UNH till last Spring! Funny to see this.

The ironic part is that the people who write textbooks that sell for big dollars only get to see a very small percentage of that. I know faculty members who get checks for $1.17 a year for textbooks they've written. Edited books have more overhead, because copyright fees are taken out of the advance.

Of course, publishing textbooks does have an indirect benefit of enhancing one's CV, which is important for promotion and tenure.

Not sure what field you're talking about. In history, publication that is not primary research is not considered much of an enhancement to your CV. People write textbooks for the money or because they want a textbook that will teach the subject the way they want it done. It's usually senior professors who already have tenure who get asked to write a textbook.

The cost issue, by the way, is why I NEVER assign textbooks to a class. They are a complete waste of students' money. I assign monographs that would actually make worthwhile additions to a library, and primary sources in a reading packet.

[MonetBass]

Originally Posted by MatticusMania

Second problem - Textbooks never sell for the price which you originally paid.

Fixed.

[LiquidMidnight]

Originally Posted by hrodbert696

Not sure what field you're talking about. In history, publication that is not primary research is not considered much of an enhancement to your CV. People write textbooks for the money or because they want a textbook that will teach the subject the way they want it done. It's usually senior professors who already have tenure who get asked to write a textbook.

I'm currently in a sociology department. I may be speaking from my bum, but perhaps there's more money in history because you can also sell to more of a general readership. I'm not at a Research One institute, so they're not as hardcore about the prestige of publication (i.e., they want you to publish, but they don't make a big deal about first authorship, etc.).

A lot of my assistantship duties this past semester has been editing my supervisor's drafts for textbooks and journal publications.

The cost issue, by the way, is why I NEVER assign textbooks to a class. They are a complete waste of students' money. I assign monographs that would actually make worthwhile additions to a library, and primary sources in a reading packet.

...and related to that, why do we need a billion "Intro" level textbooks? They all say pretty much the same thing, and touch upon all of the major concepts and research in their respective fields. Every intro to psych book is pretty much going to say the same things about Freud, Piaget, Bandura, and Erickson. Really, we only need a couple intro books per discipline that are then updated with a new edition every couple of years when enough support has come out in the peer-reviewed literature for a group of findings that would warrant inclusion in a text-book.

Just my .02 on the matter.

[Hobobob]

My history professor used free online text from multiple sources for home reading - no $150 textbook purchases there. The most expensive thing we had was the paper we printed our essays or the occasional historical document on. Makes me sad that I took the final today and won't be going back to class next week....

[MatticusMania]

Originally Posted by MonetBass

Fixed.

They can, not to the book stores, but if you find a student who will be taking that course next semester and the textbook requirements havent changed.

[RosieB]

Originally Posted by DerHoggz

I bought a book for $40 new, it is on Amazon for $180, so I was expecting it to be an international edition, but it was exactly identical to everyone else's. So, the bookstore gave me $80.

I did that too, with 2 books last quarter. It was awesome. I made enough profit to buy my books for this quarter.

[Simo98]

Originally Posted by jmattbassplaya

The funny thing is, many teachers have begun to move to online books as a way to 'help' kids save a buck or two. Unfortunately, the electronic version is typically only $40 cheaper than the physical version, you can't buy a used copy, and you can't sell it back at all. This ends up costing college students much more in the long run. You're kinda ****ed no matter what you do.

Although you can download the PDF. without paying anything..

[jmattbassplaya]

Originally Posted by Simo98

Although you can download the PDF. without paying anything..

How? You need an access code to gain access to these books, which are also linked to the websites you use to do your homework.

[J. Crawford]

I bought $210 in books this semester, got $30 back for them.. 2 went to new editions, and one was the 2nd to newest addition..

Y u no has money.