The publishing industry is facing a number of challenges in this highly technical society. Reports of decline in sales of textbooks have become regular news for most university presses. And the issues surrounding the decline just make the situation get a little darker.
The proliferation of web sites that offer pirated versions of textbooks has been pointed out as one of the main culprits of the decrease in textbook sales. Contrary to what many believed, that the books published in university presses were too specialized to even attract attention from pirates, electronic files of university-press books have already been spotted on those pirate websites.
The overpricing of textbooks might be the reason why pirate sites even exist. It can be noted that several lawsuits have already been filed over overpriced textbooks. The expense and the fact that a ‘free’ alternative is available might encourage one helpless student who cannot find cheap textbooks for his highly demanding subjects to turn to these pirate sites for refuge.
There is also the issue of electronic reserves and the use of course management software such as Blackboard. In instances where professors make chapters of a book available as electronic reserves or disseminate the materials through Blackboard, buying a textbook may not be necessary anymore. Furthermore, professors may get out of having to pay a permission fee to the publisher.
The situation calls for university presses to start making it easy for people to ask for permissions. Aside from this, open textbooks already exist to assist students in their scholarly concerns. These methods will hopefully eliminate the problem of piracy while helping students get the best learning experience possible without the additional costs.
However, the decline of textbooks sales will continue to be the challenge faced by university presses at present, considering the online alternatives. Not a good sign for the traditional textbooks industry indeed, but this is something that they need to deal with.
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September 3rd, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I am not a fan of piracy…I buy my music, software, etc. I don’t like it, but I understand it. Business needs to learn that wide spread piracy grows out of frustration and anger.
But, that’s what happens when you soak the consumer. If an industry charges as much as they can (more that what is reasonable), just because the consumer has no alternative…An alternative will present itself.
There needs to be a shift in companies strategies away from monopolies trying to corner the market. Let’s try some capitalism…competition yielding the lowest price and highest quality. You always hear “we don’t want a price war,” but so many industries are really just a few big players who control the market and just set the price as high as they can. Of course companies don’t want competion, but our system is supposed to be based on it. I’m sorry, but we live in a capitalist system people.
Piracy is a symptom of the problem of over-priced goods, not just lawlessness. Business should deal with the big issues as well as trying to shut down the law breakers.
As a graphic design firm, we have to deal with over-seas designers, bid-based design websites, templates, low-ballers, and all kinds of economic competition. We respond by offering our years of expertise, working more efficiently, and keeping our prices reasonable.
If a text book isn’t worth $100 than the publisher shouldn’t be getting way with charging $100.