I am amazed by the prices of my daughter's textbooks for her college. $200 for a textbook! I am glad that many of her Professors have gone to eBooks and custom printed books. What surprises me, is the higher price Chinese textbook I sell is $29.99 that includes a CD. I don't see the added value in the $200 book. A trick that publishers do to kill the used book market, is do minor changes in a book for a new edition.

And a book publisher, Cengage which was the 2nd largest textbook publisher in the US, even went into bankruptcy!

Options Don't Stem Textbook Woes - Inside Higher Ed

Textbook publisher Cengage files bankruptcy to cut debt - Reuters

Neat advice on when you can use an older edition:
http://www.thetextbookguru.com/2011/05/11/a-personal-note-and-new-textbook-editions-scam-or-substance-2/

Labels: college, Learning Chinese Textbook