College-textbook publishers use at least six types of “gimmicks” to jack up the prices of their products and undermine the market in used textbooks, costing a student hundreds of dollars a year, according to a report issued today by the Student Public Interest Research Groups, an advocacy organization. The report, “Required Reading: A Look at the Worst Publishing Tactics at Work,” says the publishers’ techniques include bundling their books with costly but needless workbooks and CD-ROM’s, releasing updated editions that provide little essential material that’s genuinely new, and offering customized books that are useless outside the classroom of the professor who assigned them.
October 31, 2006
Textbook Publishers' Tactics Raise Costs for Students, Report Says
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