Enhanced offerings? No thanks.

I used to work in publishing, first in marketing and then selling college textbooks on campus. Sales was a decent gig, I got to meet a lot of nice people and see some beautiful New England schools. But after two years my conscience intervened and I resigned. (I also wasn't the best salesman.) At the time I was fresh enough from college to remember how tough it was paying prices that I recognized as outrageous. To make it worse, most books were used minimally throughout the semester before being refused at the buy-back counter because a new edition was forthcoming. Fast forward a few years and it's suddenly my job to keep that scam going.

So why am I bringing this up now? Because my new heroes, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, have called the publishing industry on it. Today they've released the results of a study of skyrocketing price increases across the education market, and it's a fantastic summation of everything that made me wash my hands of it (here is the abstract, with a link to view the complete findings). Essentially, books are expensive because more and more money is being poured into technology to accompany them. The Association of American Publishers, representing such titans as Pearson and Thomson (both of which have seen me come and go), would have you believe this is necessary in order to "meet the needs of students." Said technology likely consists of basic quizzing software that caters to students who've slipped through to college without being able to multiply fractions or string together sentences into a paragraph. At best. (View the AAP's full response. A golden calf!)

College publishing is a business of dirty tricks. See, in particular, "Concerns About Bundling," "Concerns About the Frequency of Revisions" and the first three paragraphs under "Concerns About Other Publisher Practices." These examples constitute ninety-five percent of my old job. It sucked.

Think of it this way: shopping for a new car, you're given the opportunity to customize what you want. All-wheel drive, sun roof, stem lube, whatever. And the price inches up with each of these options. In other words, the dealership isn't saying you have to buy a fully loaded vehicle or else nothing at all. Aha, but publishers do! Don't want a study guide? Too bad. Don't think you'll use the planetarium software? Too bad. Bundle? Bundle. You, my friend, are stuck with a fully loaded package. And what if the dealership imposes some hot custom paint job on the hood, only you don't want to advertise that you'd like to wine, dine and sixty-nine everybody in sight? It might hurt your resale value, much like a custom book with select chapters from here and there most definitely would, but that's not their problem. In fact, not reintroducing your… book… into the market ensures the sale of a brand new one down the line.

I know publishers aren't solely to blame. Campus bookstores are guilty of huge markups and many instructors are too lazy and/or apathetic to recognize a book's value or to seek out reasonable alternatives. But publishing is a big enough industry that it could clean up the whole operation, itself included, and produce stronger graduates. I'm all for capitalism, but don't tell the student with the $150 organic chemistry book under his arm that you're helping him become a better student—he's a goddamn consumer.