September 4, 2008

Cutthroat Competition for Textbook Sales Pits UMass Faculty Members Against Bookstore

A bitter battle for the textbook market in Amherst, Mass., is being waged by anything but the book, to judge from an article in today’s Daily Collegian, the student newspaper at the University of Massachusetts’ flagship campus.

The competitors for students’ textbook business are, on the one hand, several local independent booksellers, and on the other, the university bookstore, which is run under contract by the Follett Higher Education Group, the nation’s largest collegiate-bookstore chain.

It seems that a number of professors at the public university would prefer to give business to the local bookstores rather than to the Follett-run university store, so they provide their required reading lists — a prerequisite for ordering books ahead of time — only to the independent store owners. Students can buy their books wherever they want, but a store that has the books in stock has a clear advantage over a store that needs to order them.

To level the playing field, according to The Daily Collegian, the director of the university store, Ken Kahler, posed as the parent of a student and asked a professor of English what textbook she planned to assign. The professor grew suspicious, and very soon the store official was unmasked.

“When I confronted him, he admitted that he did not have a daughter in my class and that he had deliberately deceived me in effect to steal our orders from the bookstores with whom we had placed them,” the professor, Suzanne Daly, told the Collegian.

Mr. Kahler was reprimanded by a vice president at Follett, the newspaper reported, and the university official who oversees the contract with Follett has apologized to Ms. Daly and other faculty members who have complained of the store’s business practices. —Andrew Mytelka

Comments

1. What’s truly obscene is the price charged for these books. Professors hiding behind noble motives gouge students again!

   — Natasha M.    Sep 4, 04:00 PM    #

2. If faculty REALLY cared about students, they would post reading lists with ISBNs so that students could order them at the cheapest prices and skip the bookstore (independent & university owned) all together.

   — Michael Rex    Sep 4, 04:09 PM    #

3. This is a Blue State problem. In a Red State, the retribution for intelligence gathering would be buckshot.

   — Charlie G    Sep 4, 04:10 PM    #

4. Let’s see. Do the local bookstores offer incentives to the noble faculty for the book listings? Commissions/kickbacks anyone?

   — seth    Sep 4, 04:21 PM    #

5. And professors wonder why students don’t have their books, are still waiting for book vouchers, or hold off until the first week of class to order books.

   The universities take enough money from us, it hurts so bad to have to shell out so much more for books.

   People wonder why students turn to piracy?

   — S. David    Sep 4, 04:33 PM    #

6. My experience with the Follett store on my campus indicates they offer inferior service. No wonder people would prefer a locally owned bookstore instead of the out of town chain that does a deal of some kind with university officials (most likely, officials most removed from the academic side of things).

   As for Mr Rex’s comments on ISBNs — not all copies of a text have the same ISBN number, even when the content is identical; many ISBNs on the copy that the prof has is unique to the version distributed to the profs by publishers. Give that number to students, and they are badly out of luck. And what if I have the ISBN to the expensive hard cover, but there’s a cheaper soft cover too? I like to let book store professionals sort that kind of thing out. In practical terms, your idea amounts to asking a million professors to take over the functions of bookselling professionals – which would produce a lot of disorder. And students can order a book online if they have the correct title and author of the text.

   And what kickbacks do bookstores offer??? Never heard of such a thing, aside from seth’s allegation. The official campus bookstore is the one that is more likely to be shaped by financial deals detrimental to students.

   — Marc    Sep 4, 04:35 PM    #

7. The important issue here is deception and asking professors to break the law. It is the means not the ends which has raised the furor in the Amherst community. Someone mentioned this being a Blue State problem. Figures. Anyone from a state that would support an administration that has lied to an unprecedented degree and made the ethics of means irrelevant in the pursuit of its means wouldn’t understand the issues here.

   — Nat    Sep 4, 04:39 PM    #

8. Having worked my way through grad school at a local bookseller that carried textbooks, I need to chime in…the way publishers behave – new editions every year, homework websites with codes that can only be used once per book, and the like, I actually understand the impulse to pirate.

   Bookstores make next to nothing on textbook sales…students and faculty loved the independant bookseller that I worked for because they actually carried a HUGE selection of books of all kinds – so people could get to books they wanted that weren’t for class!

   The university bookstore did not/could not carry these other books – they didn’t have the space…they (and we) made business sustaining profits from T-shirts and supplies!!!

   Please don’t be angry at profs or bookstore owners/managers – they are barely surviving – while textbook publishers make a freaking killing!!!!

   — rbuck    Sep 4, 04:42 PM    #

9. I just spent $720 for my daughter’s books this semester, and about half of them were used. Last term it was about the same. At the end of last term she only got $92 back when she sold her books back to the store! If students try to get books from kids who took the class before they can’t because often the authors/publishers will change a few graphs, tables or footnotes and the prof will require the students get the “updated” edition. What a rip off!

   — Andrea    Sep 4, 04:44 PM    #

10. My daughter is a junior at a public university, and spent more than $600 for texts this term. There were no unusual books in the stack. If I had to spend that kind of money for books, I darn sure would look to get the texts ANY way I could, legal or not. Textbook prices are about to break this system…students will refuse to keep supporting these prices.

    — Al    Sep 4, 04:49 PM    #

11. Arkansas addressed this issue last year with Legislative Act 175:

    (1) For each full semester and collectively for summer sessions, a state-supported institution of higher education in this state shall distribute a list of all textbooks and course materials required or assigned for an undergraduate course by:
    (A) Publication on its website; and
    (B) Posting at its bookstore.

    (2) The list shall be distributed no later than noon on:

    (A) April 1 for the following fall semester;

    (B) November 1 for the following spring semester; and

    C) April 1 for all following summer sessions.

    — Dr. RingDing    Sep 4, 04:49 PM    #

12. #8 – Nat:
    Name me one president or administration that hasn’t lied, deceived, or mislead the public.

    Before you get on the horse by the name “This Administration” I have one bit of advice that I apply to our political system.
    ‘Never vote for a candidate who chose politics as a career.’

    Do you want real change in politics? Vote out every incumbent and put term limits on every office.

    Sorry for the threadjack folks.

    The price of books is almost criminal in the way students are held up without any real recourse.

    — casey    Sep 4, 04:54 PM    #

13. In Ohio, book orders are considered public documents and may be requested (and must be provided) to anyone who asks, including bookstore managers. Thus, alternative bookstores can get copies. But savvy students go to Amazon.

    — Carol    Sep 4, 05:02 PM    #

14. There’s reason people are angry about the cost of textbooks—but why has no one addressed the issue of deception? Does that really not matter to anyone?

    — Jim    Sep 4, 05:03 PM    #

15. I attended UMass several years ago, and I think part of what is missing in these comments is an assessment of the local area. Given the more liberal nature of Western Massachusetts, there is a push for “mom-and-pop” organizations that represent the opposite of Corporate America. While the smaller booksellers tend to have better prices, they also stand for a way of doing business that resonates better in the Pioneer Valley. While it was more convenient to go to the on-campus store, students generally seemed to applaud the efforts of faculty for supporting local businesses that derive much of their existence from the University’s yearly influx of students.

    — Steve    Sep 4, 05:14 PM    #

16. Get those textbooks on Kindle!! If only these elitist presses would offer the textbooks on e-readers, it would save students lot of money. This will be a hot topic now that the HEOA has passed and there is a section dictating that textbook costs drop.

    — AW    Sep 4, 05:16 PM    #

17. Carol (#15) suggests that savvy Ohio students go to Amazon. Not very much in my experience. I use one cheap new paper text, and one old trade paperback, and each year I e-mail the entire class to tell them that the trade book is available for 10 cents plus exhorbitant shipping costs through second hand dealers – I provide the URLs. Pretty much all of them show up with brand new copies that cost $20. Meanwhile, I like using the little independent store when I can, because they are great people, but personally I have never seen any brick and mortar bookstore be one penny different in their prices.

    By the way, what is the penalty in Arkansas for not posting your order? I have never designed a course that far in advance, and probably rarely will.

    — Marty    Sep 4, 05:32 PM    #

18. I currently have two books in press and have not made a cent from either. The Press gave me nothing but the honor of publishing with them and I’m sure if I assigned my text for a course (it’s not worth the whining of students who believe I’m making $34.00 per book), I’m sure the campus bookstore wouldn’t offer me a cent. And this is the prof’s fault how?

    My position is that we should make our textbook lists available to all and let the bookstores compete. One problem is that booksellers on campus believe they are the only ones entitled to get my reading lists…nope.

    Another problem is that campus bookstores have not adapted to the competivite nature of the used book market. It used to be that many campus bookstores had a captive audience and could afford to treat professors and students like crap. It amazes me when I get vitrolic e-mails from the bookstore manager “demanding” that I send in my book orders 6 months in advance. Sure, and then I point my students to abebooks.com

    — curious    Sep 4, 05:33 PM    #

19. rbuck in comment 8 castigates “the way publishers behave – new editions every year, homework websites with codes that can only be used once per book, and the like,” and concludes “I actually understand the impulse to pirate.” What would rbuck have publishers do, give away content for free ad infinitum? Perhaps universities should either quit accepting public funding or quit charging students for education, since no on likes having to pay taxes or tuition. It never fails to amaze me how some people think that anything desirable should therefore be “free.”

    — J. Ward    Sep 4, 06:08 PM    #

20. There’s a very straightforward and informative account of what textbook publishers make on their books, and why those books are priced as they are, at www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/91.4/forman.html. All best, Peter

    — peter hoffer    Sep 4, 06:15 PM    #

21. #22
    Interesting. Publishers claim 3.8% and Bookstores claim 4.5% net income.

    — Book Guy    Sep 4, 08:02 PM    #

22. As to the particular issue described in the article, my own experience may shed some light. I taught at a state university which had a small independent bookstore compete against them. The university would not provide the town store with book order information; the town store always tried to get competitive rates and plenty of used copies so as to offer students a better deal. We (the faculty) were, if memory serves, instructed not to cooperate with or respond to requests from the town store for book information. In our case, professors were not being bribed by the town store, but actively impeded from allowing them to provide some market pressure on the campus store. Web stores were not as big then; but even today, since one routinely has students who have never read a book or at least never used a bookstore, the only way they know about Amazon is if one demonstrates it in class—by which time they have enrolled and usually bought books already.

    — James Mc.    Sep 4, 08:03 PM    #

23. Since most of the textbooks I am now seeing being pawned on students resembles the book version of USA Today, I don’t bother. I require lots of reading in my courses, but no textbooks.

    — john    Sep 4, 08:08 PM    #

24. If book sellers make so little then how come often the “international” edition is so much cheaper? I have students buying books from the UK and even with shipping across “the pond” on a priority basis it is still often significantly cheaper than in the USA.

    Googling the ISBN and then clicking on the ‘paid to be the first few in the results list’ gets you book search engines that search 80-200 online book sites. A few of my students have gotten their books that way.

    — anon    Sep 4, 08:51 PM    #

25. The comments have become a referendum on textbook prices, but what about the original issue? Are you all okay with businesses assuming false identities on the internet to get information from you? Also, at my campus Follett does NOT give better textbook prices than the local bookstores, but they DO treat both faculty and students badly. My students hate them, and I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to deal with them.

    — jane    Sep 4, 08:58 PM    #

26. The U. bookstore at a my first job did something similar to this and when we faculty complained, we were told that our syllabi were property of the University and we had no right to give the book list to independent bookstores.

    As for those of you blaming the Profs, maybe there are some Profs out there making big bucks off of student books, but I can assure you that I haven’t made back back of what I spent researching my book intended for student use—and that is not unusual. Most of the faculty I know agonize over how much we ask students to spend on books.

    — O.H.    Sep 4, 11:40 PM    #

27. The Higher Ed Act Reauthorization has a provision for providing ISBNs in Title I (effective 2010?). It’s imperfect, but a start:

    `(d) Provision of ISBN College Textbook Information in Course Schedules- To the maximum extent practicable, each institution of higher education receiving Federal financial assistance shall—

    `(1) disclose, on the institution’s Internet course schedule and in a manner of the institution’s choosing, the International Standard Book Number and retail price information of required and recommended college textbooks and supplemental materials for each course listed in the institution’s course schedule used for preregistration and registration purposes, except that—

    `(A) if the International Standard Book Number is not available for such college textbook or supplemental material, then the institution shall include in the Internet course schedule the author, title, publisher, and copyright date for such college textbook or supplemental material; and

    `(B) if the institution determines that the disclosure of the information described in this subsection is not practicable for a college textbook or supplemental material, then the institution shall so indicate by placing the designation `To Be Determined’ in lieu of the information required under this subsection; and

    `(2) if applicable, include on the institution’s written course schedule a notice that textbook information is available on the institution’s Internet course schedule, and the Internet address for such schedule.

    — bjh    Sep 5, 12:08 AM    #

28. do any of you realize what a small percentage of your overall educational expenses textbooks actually are? how about excessive tuition, student fees and faculty/administration salaries? the key to your future earning potential is a solid education. publishers do not change editions every year; most books are on a two or three year revision cycle. this is necessary to recoup the investment put into production and compensate authors for their hard work. have you ever considered the earning over a lifetime of a high school graduate vs. a college graduate? roughly 1.2 m vs. 2.1m? still think textbooks are too expensive? think again…

    — paul burke    Sep 5, 10:59 AM    #

29. #19, I don’t know what the penalty is for not complying with the Arkansas law…I asked that when it was passed and wondered if I did not comply if I would be arrested – I was not given straight answer. If I do not turn in my orders on time, I have to fill out paperwork that has to be signed by upper admin. More work for our underpaid staff who get blamed and hassled if we do not get those text book orders in by the dates specified. Also, what was not stated is that by law we are now not allowed to inform students they are better served looking on-line for their books. I get around this by telling my students I am not allowed to tell them to look on-line – wink-wink. Oh gee, I wonder if they will arrest me for this? The only people this nonsense benefits is the campus book store – Follet’s by the way.

    — Arky Prof    Sep 5, 11:26 AM    #

30. The problem isn’t with professors or book stores, but with the publishers and academia’s publish or perish mentality. With databases and programs like Blackboard, textbooks are obsolete in many cases. I teach English composition and find 90% of the material in texts to be worthless.

    The solution? Allow faculty to self-publish their own texts, which would include tailor-made lessons and chapters. The books end up costing the students a heck of a lot less, and the teachers/writers get most of the profit. It’s a win-win.

    — Dr. Dave    Sep 5, 11:27 AM    #

31. With few exceptions, faculty members get their books free from the publishers. I’m not implying that they get a kickback of some kind, but in secondary schools, teachers are invited to exotic locations all expenses paid, to help “edit” textbooks, and by the way, why wouldn’t you recommend a textbook that included your name as an editor.

    — OBAMA 2008    Sep 5, 11:35 AM    #

32. #32—“publish or perish” has nothing to do with it…research universities do not give much “credit” for a textbook— writing one is often seen as an exercise in bad judgment as colleagues wonder why one has not spent the time on original scholarly work.

    — perplexed    Sep 5, 12:47 PM    #

33. #35 – You’re the kind of professor that makes the rest look bad. I have $400 dollars the beginning of my semester, lets see, pay my $300 portion of this months rent, $80 on food, and $20 on cigarettes and beer, or try to buy as many books as I can out of the $600 required? How could you possibly compare textbooks to cigarettes and beer? I’m sure you don’t buy and/or consume alcohol and tobacco? If you knew half of what you think you know about your students you’d know that they many are spending way more on other recreational drugs than cigarettes and beer. Not all of us are getting an easy ride on mommy and daddy’s bank account. And if you think financial aid and university grants cover all the necessary, let alone the unnecessary expenses then you don’t have any business teaching. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize luxuries like cigarettes and beer were only acceptable for the non-minorities with nuclear families that aren’t served by a half-assed affirmative action system.

    — Student    Sep 5, 03:18 PM    #

34. I work at a community college that charges $83/credit hour so it is the huge cost of books that challenges our students – not tuition.

    As a faculty member, we can do something. In my Ethics classes, I stopped using textbooks. It drove me crazy that the publishers came out with a new edition (with very little “new” anything ) every 18 months. Now, my students buy books by Kant, Mill, and Aristotle (less than $25 for all three books). Whenever the Publisher’s rep comes to visit, I tell him exactly why I“m not using his books.

    In classes where I absolutely have to use texts, I have the college buy a couple of copies and put them on reserve at the library so students can borrow them for 1-2 hours at a time. This is another option for students who can’t afford the books.

    — DJW    Sep 5, 05:49 PM    #

35. I had a dream last night: I suppose it was sparked by NPR’s announcement that the unemployment rate had reached over 6%. In my dream I was searching the word “Student” on the internet, and I was going from site to site finding that one after another the institutions of higher learning had closed their doors. I could only imagine that because of an economic downturn states were no longer able to fund their public universities, and students were no longer able to pay tuition. It’s a scary scenario, but could it be in our future? Will there be a Depression like the one in 1929? With more and more layoffs and housing foreclosures, could it snowball out of control? Let’s hope the next administration finds the right combination of actions to bring the economy out of its slump! Doris

    — Doris    Sep 7, 11:33 AM    #

36. ARKY Prof, The University of Arkansas Bookstore in Fayetteville is NOT a Follet store.
    Also, according to Senator Madison(who wrote the law), those who don’t comply could be hauled before a legislative committee to explain why. So you won’t be arrested for the violation of this law.

    — Rick    Sep 7, 05:00 PM    #

37. If professors really cared about book costs they could do as I do… I have a custom copy made that is loose leaf and black and white. It is about 50% of the regular cost. Since there is little difference between some texts I also ask competing sales reps to give me their best offer… and select the one that offers the lowest price. An additional bonus: students need only bring the relevant chapter to class instead of the entire book.

    — Dave    Sep 8, 08:46 PM    #

38. Here’s the deal: Prepare a class pack that includes all your printed materials. Include your lecture outlines (they will still have to come to class, believe me!), and podcast, for goodness sakes!There is so much legitimate and copyright-free information out there, one does not really need a shrink-wrapped text with all those bogus DVDs and website bundles.

    Or you can custom publish using the textbook reps. Just like buying a car, you can have them fighting for your business. I managed to get a $110.00 text book customed into a $40.00 textbook. Yes, I had to play hardball, but truth be told, it was fun watching them sweat. Who says academics don’t know how to get down and dirty when our students’ budgets are at stake?

    Just Say No!

    — Peggy    Sep 9, 11:31 PM    #

39. Peggy…Right on. I put all of my materials on a CD and pass them out…this is especially nice when you teach at different locations where access to a podcast is not guaranteed…like some foreign countries. By the way, in foreign countries they can buy the international version of a text. Mine costs about $100 in the US and $10 in Vietnam.

    — Dave    Sep 10, 10:27 PM    #

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