Flashes of Panic

I walk both sides of the textbook-pricing fence.

See, for the last four years I’ve been employed by a textbook publishing company. You know, those evil profiteers who pump up the prices of their books by including extra, supposedly unnecessary CD-ROMs and study guides in order to charge top dollar for the same old book. In fact, I was technically in the ancillaries department: the ones who produced the extra CD-ROMs, websites, etc. etc.—which are actually part of an arms race between publishers trying to convince professors to “adopt” their book over the others.

I also heard the complaints (whines?) from students protesting that publishers produce new editions too frequently in an effort to squash the used-book market. Sometimes that’s true; sometimes (as is often the case in the sciences) one needs a new edition to catch up with the science.

At any rate, my salary from four years on the Dark Side is subsidizing my gradual student lifestyle, thanks. So I can forgive them a good bit.

Now, however, I’m on the other side of the price tag. I’m trying to assemble all the books for the classes I’ve registered for, and it’s really a headache.

First, I’ve become a fan of the used book. This partly happened this summer, when I was selling excess books to avoid moving them. Also, I recently read an article in the NYT which pointed out something Amazon discovered when they opened up to used books: a healthy used market makes customers more willing to buy new. So I’m contributing to the healthy used market.

Second, in my time in night school, I developed an antipathy to college bookstores. They tend to feel like ripoffs when I stack up all my books and plop down my credit card. So, I start online.

Saturday, I cruised the course websites, built a book list, and opened windows on B&N and Amazon. I discovered a few years ago that a B&N Membership will really pay off if you’re buying textbooks (the 10% discount pays for the membership inside a semester) but Amazon’s used market is bigger and more competitive. So I shopped each book on both sites, built two orders, and submitted them.

The catch with online book orders is delivery time. I may be past the add-drop period before I have all my books. It’s impossible to tell when they’ll actually arrive, because the predicted arrival times are so cautious, but the forecast dates are pretty scary. I’m planning a lot of library time for reserve reading. I also whiffed completely on one book, ordering the wrong title from the right author; I’ve resubmitted that order.

Fortunately, my Monday-Wednesday courses only meet once this week, which gives me some time to get things together. However, next semester I need to either (a) start earlier, or (b) figure out an efficient way to hedge the arrival times, like shopping a physical bookstore first, or (c) some combination.