🚀 go-pugleaf

As somewhat of an insider (i.e. an author) I can provide some clarification
of the pricing differential between for-profit and not-for-profit
publishers and similar issues raised by Paul A. Thompson.

Some books are more expensive to print; generally, more graphics mean
greater printing expense.  Similarly, color adds to the cost of a
book.  However, I believe the major influence of the retail price of
a textbook is the expected number of copies sold.  greater volume
enables the publisher to set asmaller retail price.  Yet another factor,
but definitely less influential, is whether the author has a royalty
or one-time-payment arrangement; royalties result in higher retail
prices.

almotforgot,  textbooks tend to be slightly higher because the library
market for them is almost an empty set.  Professional books, however,
arelikelyto produce a sizablenumber of library sales, so their market
is, at times, larger than themarket for a textbook in an upper-division
undergrduate or a graduate course.

Dr. Francis C. Dane, Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Psychology, Mercer University
Macon, GA  31207-0001  USA
Bitnet: FDANE@UGA   Internet: FDANE@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Tel: (912) 752-2972
Fax: (912) 752-2108