Confessions of a Textbook Salesman

January 12, 2010 # 12:18 am # Campus, Features # No Comment

An in-depth look at the seedy relationships between professors and textbook representatives and why your books cost so much

By Ren LaForme
Editor in Chief

On a frigid day before the semester began, Amanda Szudzik walked out of the University Bookstore on North Campus $700 poorer. “I spent $700 on books and barely used any of them. My most expensive book was $200 and I never once used it.”

Szudzik, a sophomore nursing major, is not alone. College students in the United States spend between $700 and $1,000 on textbooks every year, according to a study performed by the U.S. Department of Education. An estimated 17.66 million college students in the U.S. spent more than $4.6 billion on textbooks in 2006.

Those numbers continue to rise at a rate higher than inflation. A Government Accountability Office study found that textbook costs increase by approximately 6 percent per year, or double the rate of inflation of other consumer goods. With no regulation or government agencies providing oversight for the textbook industry, many believe that costs will only continue to increase.

“The people who write the books are to blame because they charge so much,” Szudzik says. “For example, my microbiology class, the professor writes the textbook so I feel like he jacks the price up a lot when, in reality, we hardly will ever even use the book.”

“Fall semester of 2008, I spent $1,500 between books, equipment, scrubs, lab coats, and a $500 PDA. All of these were purchased at the UB Medical bookstore,” says Caitlan Mulholland, a senior nursing major. “Hospitals have told us that the prices we paid for the materials in our ‘kit’ are absurd and much higher than the retail price that medical professionals pay. I understand we need these type of materials to learn, however, needing to take out an extra loan just so I can cover the costs is absolutely ridiculous.”

According to David Weliver, a former textbook representative for one of the top 10 higher education textbook publishers in the United States, the textbook industry’s “sexy underground” is the reason for the inflated prices.

“There are really only two ways to sell textbooks: have the best textbook … or be the professor’s favorite sales rep,” Weliver says. “Once our book was published, we couldn’t control whether it was the best or not, so we tried to become professors’ best friends. We sent them lots of free books. We took them for dinner and drinks. We called them just to ‘chat.’”

Once the salespeople establish a relationship with a professor, it is easier influence his or her decision-making process when it comes time to choose a book, allowing representatives to steer professors toward the most expensive products – maximizing commission and company profits.

“Basically, after a [education] convention we’d rent out part of a bar and pay the tab for several hours for professors,” Weliever says. “I once heard a marketing manger for McGraw-Hill bragging about a $14,000 bar tab he paid while entertaining professors.”

Publishers also use their position to offer professors résumé boosters – often by getting as many professors involved in the creation of textbooks as possible, Weliever says. “We invited people to be ‘reviewers’ of new books. In exchange for reading a draft of a chapter, they’d get their name in the front of the published text. It’s a [résumé] booster for them. For us, that means they’ll be more likely to use a book with their name in it.”

According to the Affordable Textbooks Campaign, a coalition of student public interest research groups and student government associations in 14 states who are “working to make college more affordable,” publishers are able to keep profits high from year to year by increasing prices, bundling textbooks with other items, releasing new editions, and selling “low cost” textbooks that cannot be resold.

One of the group’s studies found that the price of Pearson’s “Conceptual Physics” 10th edition increased by 13 percent in a one year period, from $112.40 in 2005 to $126.65 in 2006.

New editions of textbooks, in particular, are often a huge headache for students. New editions eliminate the possibility of reselling a book and raise prices. One watchdog group says new textbooks cost 12 percent more than the previous editions.

It shouldn’t be surprising that many professors fail to even notice the price of the textbooks they assign to their students. “There are some professors who are sensitive to students’ budgets, but many don’t even notice a books’ price tag,” Weliever says. According to one textbook watchdog group, representatives often fail to mention the price of the books on purpose.

These practices contribute to inflated prices because the textbook industry is not based on supply and demand – the consumers who choose the textbooks (professors) are not the same consumers who use them (students). “Because professors choose textbooks and students ultimately pay for them, the books’ cost rarely plays a role,” Weliever says.

This makes the textbook industry more similar to the prescription drug industry than any other – and several well-documented cases involving drugs like Zyprexa and Prozac have showed that the drug industry sometimes shows more concern for profits than patients.

“Analogous to the market for prescription drugs where prices have risen rapidly, in the market for textbooks the separation of textbook choice and textbook payment profoundly influences pricing … Students end up being coerced to pay for someone else’s choices. This tends to make their textbook purchases less responsive to price increases than their purchases of items such as cheeseburgers and jeans,” says one study by James V. Koch, a Board of Visitors professor of economics and president emeritus at Old Dominion University.

But publishers contend that they send representatives to help professors choose the best books – not to bribe them into selecting more expensive ones. “McGraw-Hill Higher Education sales representatives are responsible for meeting the needs of instructors and providing them with the highest quality and most cost-effective learning materials for their students,” says Tom Stanton, communications director for the company.

According to Stanton, the costs do not come from the nature of the industry, but from the raw materials and thought that go into producing a textbook.

“The largest percentages of the wholesale textbook price – in descending order – go to cover author royalties, paper, printing and binding, investments in editorial development and digital product development, marketing, instructor resources, and support materials, general and administrative costs, and freight costs,” he says.

The Association of American Publishers released a report that showed textbook costs remaining steady at 4 percent of total college costs, contradicting the findings of the report from the Department of Education. “We raise and lower the prices of educational materials based on continuous monitoring and evaluation of the market environment,” Stanton says.

The University Bookstore on North Campus doesn’t have much control over textbook pricing or which edition professors choose to use, according to Elio Distaola, director of campus relations for the Follett Higher Education Group, who said that the school’s markup costs are confidential information.

“Books that are pre-priced are sold at that price,” he says. “Books that are not pre-priced are sold at an agreed upon contractual margin in a contract between the school and Follett, the bookstore operator. Unfortunately, the details are obviously contractual and proprietary, it would be at the school’s discretion for release.”

The government has done little to mitigate textbook costs for students, but the recent Higher Education Opportunity Acts took some steps in a direction toward more regulation of the industry. According to Inside Higher Ed, the act requires universities to “publish the ISBN numbers and retail prices for textbooks, other trade titles, and related course materials that faculty recommend and students buy for classes.”

“The ISBN mandate will accelerate the demise of a once captive market: college students buying books and course materials at the local college bookstore,” the publication wrote.

In the meantime, students can use a variety of tactics to save money and alleviate expenses.

“Buy the cleanest used copy [used textbook] you can find, keep it in good condition as you use it and sell it as soon as you’re done with it before a new edition comes out and diminishes the value. If you can do this, you can recoup most of what you paid for each book,” says Weliever, the former textbook representative.

According to Distaola from Follett, students can save money by purchasing used books, renting texts and using digital offerings available at the University Bookstore. “In just one semester, our rental program saved students at UB over $220,000 over the cost of new books … In addition, we continue to explore and expand our digital offerings, also cost-savings from traditional ‘bound’ books.”

Unfortunately, there’s not much students can do to stop the “sexy underground,” save speaking to their professors about their financial hardships.

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