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Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2006-03-27, 20:54

Quote:
Originally Posted by ghoti
BTW, the only people getting rich from those books are the publishers. I've written two book chapters, and haven't seen a single cent. That's probably different for monographs, but even then I doubt that the authors make a lot of money. Also, in some areas there just aren't any useful textbooks at all. I'm teaching a course right now, and I give my students photocopies from several books. I could have required to buy two or three textbooks, though .... So perhaps I'll write a book someday, and that will certainly be relevant for my course (if I still teach it by then). And even if there are books on your subject, they are not going to necessarily reflect what you want to teach your students, or how you think the material should be presented.
I'd like to see what's the profit margin on those... I'd imagine that the cost of paper, binding, and ink would be quite high, when you consider that the textbook is of a higher quality compared to most of hardcover books out there. If it was low, then okay. If not, that's a bad thing.

Assuming that publishers break even or close to that, do they really have to use glossy paper, with lot of colors?
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