/sci/ - Science & Math

The textbook mafia. They have an almost guaranteed rate of sales and gauge accordingly. They aren't persuing the general public for sales, which is pretty short sited. I myself would buy textbooks merely out of interest.

>>5370652
>They aren't persuing the general public for sales, which is pretty short sited. I myself would buy textbooks merely out of interest.

This. Textbooks are for institutions and perhaps students, not the general public. It's a shame, but if John Everyman can buy a textbook for a low price, then so can universities and students.

Out of interest, has anyone published figures on university textbook spending? That must really add up.

>>5370667
Do a calculation of university processor textbook sales income.

Had a class with one particular faggot once, not only was he dull, but the classes he had required you to buy the textbook that he wrote. And of course there was a new edition out each year.

Now the price of the book weren't a ridiculous £135. It was 'only' something around $40. Meaning he probably earned at least $10k a year just from book sales.

>>5370641
>pirate it instead
I am interested. Pirate bay?

So that professors who write books can be rich like businessmen, rappers, football players.

If textbook is cheap, then professors get paid minimum wages, while businessmen, rappers, football players are multi-millionaires.

Think of the whole picture. This is a move to create wealth. Everyone has a chance to become rich, wealth is not limited to only the businessmen or football players or rappers. A professor just have to work hard and write a textbook, then he will get paid good money.

>>5370704
The filename of my copy is just a random string of digits. I'm guessing it's the official ebook from some subscription site, ripped and de-DRMed.

I either got it from library.nu (RIP), avaxhome or Library Genesis.
http://waa.ai/uWL
http://waa.ai/uWb
(shortlinks due to spam filters)

Good websites, good book.

The problem with expensive textbooks is that it means everyone relies on Wikipedia instead. Not that Wikipedia is a bad resource, but I'd trust (and enjoy) a book on the subject written by experts far more than a crowdsourced encyclopedia. Especially if it was approaching it from some niche angle, e.g. "Gender Studies for Mathematicians" instead of Wikipedia's "Gender studies" article.

>>5370722
>waa.ai

My nigga, although I prefer nazr.in

>>5370699
>the classes he had required you to buy the textbook that he wrote
HOLY SHIT can you spell "corruption"?
How can a university tolerate this crap?

Professorfag here
Textbooks are different from other books. No one buys them unless they are required for a course, and when they are required for a course, the publisher has to deliver N books to a specific university bookstore.
So the economies of scale favour mass-market books, not textbooks.
That being said, if students are content with reading an online version, there is no reason to force students to buy print versions.

>>5370641
Someone posted this awhile back.

http://en.bookfi.org/

Looks pretty nice, and you can add books.

>>5370641

You can get textbooks for cheap if you buy them used (although I checked for that particular book, used copies are still like £60)

Why is tuition increasing at an insane rate as well?

I suggest you sit in on a public faculty meeting for your specific department. A lot of the money isn't even going to the professors to deal with an increasing class, it's going straight to the administrators, deans, and P's and VP's.

>>5370731
Professorfag here again
Re. requiring students to buy a book that you wrote: the obvious case where this would apply is if you are an expert in a new area, there are no textbooks that meet your standards, and you want the students to have the best textbook possible. It's more a case of narcissism -- "No one can write a better textbook than I" -- than a desire for money. Even if the author got £10 for every copy, that's not much compared to their university salary.
If I ever did that, though, I would do something to reimburse my students whatever profit I made from the book, like hold a dinner party for them or something.

I had a teacher require us to buy a coursepack that was a fuckhuge 3-ring binder with printed versions of magazine and journal articles and chapters from books. Once you figured in printing and copyright fees for printing, it was about $100 for something we all could have gotten for cheap/free using institutional access to journals.

Oh and a couple of those articles were things the professor wrote.

Felt good going to a university where every textbook was in the library in good condition and reasonable quantities.

>>5370742
>like hold a dinner party for them or something.

How thoughtful of you... Make them buy a overpriced new-edition of your book and pay them back in some bare-minimum-food dinner party. It's not for the money, keep telling yourself that.

>>5370731
No offense prof, but I think you are full of shit.
It doesn't cost that much to process books even in small volumes.
http://svpow.com/2012/01/13/the-obscene-profits-of-commercial-scholarly-publishers/
Publishers do disgusting profit margins and abuse their secure position.

>>5370763
>Pay back to students everything you make from them buying your textbook
>Still get accused of avarice
A professor's lot is not a happy one

>>5370771
I certainly agree with that. Scholarly publishers make incredible profits, whether it's selling textbooks to students or selling journals to professors and libraries.

>>5370641
The same reason gas prices are so expensive; most people have no alternative.
Unless you're willing to pirate or fail you have no choice but to pay what the publisher sets the price at.
Sure, you could buy used but even those prices are based on retail value rather than the intrinsic value of the book.

>>5370781
>most people have no alternative.
They do, everyone pirates and prints.
It's not that "people" have no alternative, it's that institutions don't.

Professorfag here again, droning on and on as we are wont to do
Another consideration is that if you happen to write the "brand leader" textbook on a particular subject close to when it becomes "hot", you can make an insane amount of money since huge numbers of universities will put on courses requiring your textbook.
Case in point, "Software Engineering" by Ian Sommerville. Probably at least 20% of all the universities that offer SE courses require this.
So the temptation for profs is to write the big textbook that will become famous.

>psychology
>Applied
>applied to life

what?

>>5371774
It basically explores the basics of psychology while talking about how it applies to 21st century living. e.g. rather than just saying, "These are Freud's defense mechanisms, learn their definitions," it offers real-world examples as well as relevant made-up ones.
The book is also written as something like a giant "fuck you" to self-help books.

i pirate old copies or borrow textbooks from friends

I guess my school was the only one where international editions ran radiant? $40 new int vs $200 new normal...

My favorite part was always the stickers over the "not for sale in the us" warning each book carried.

>>5371774

This.

>>5371789

Are there really still people who take anything Freud did serious?

>>5372880
Some of Freud's ideas were right for the wrong reasons. Most of what is popularly known about Freud's work is discredited, but psychodynamic therapy has wide use today and is derived from Freud's psychoanalysis methods.

>>5372920

I hop that's not what you really believe. Psychodynamic therapy has yet to prove that it helps at all. Therapeutic effects are not significantly above spontanous remission rate. (probably because psychodynamic therapy often takes 2-3 years)
There is not a single mental disorder for which psychodynamic therapy would be the best option. CBT is way better in pretty much every aspect.

>>5372938
I wouldn't say it's what I believe, but it's what I've been told by psychologists.

The text books are of terrible learning quality. Always. I wish I could just be allowed to learn by self study and free resources found on the internet. Those resources are better. Much better. And free. FREE.

>>5372938
>CBT

cock and ball torture?

A lot of what Freud said and did is laughable and he did some pretty dick things (faking results, lying to his patients, telling everyone the world they suffered real or imagined abuse as a child) but he did pave the way for some important developments and knock down a few taboos.

His daughter, Anna, deserves more credit than she gets, but most of her work is usually falsely attributed to good old Sigi.

>>5372920
>psychodynamic therapy
LMFAO

It has been shown that endlessly talking about your problems actually makes them more persistent.

>>5373035
>did some pretty dick things
Dat pun. If it was unintentional, it proves Freud right.

>>5373044
Yep, it just slipped in there.

>>5373049
Ooh-er.

>>5370641
Knowledge=money

>>5373039
>It has been shown that endlessly talking about your problems actually makes them more persistent.
source on that? Most people go to psychologist to find out the problems on their own. Psychologist don't really recommend direct courses of action anymore. They figure out their own problems while in session.

>>5373049
this mother fucker

>>5373094

They figure out their own problems while in session by endlessly talking about their problems. I agree, he needs a source, but you are not counter arguing at all, you are just taking the conversation in a completely different direction.

>>5373094
I think he may be talking about catharsis. Psychologists discovered fairly recently that punching pillows and shouting complaints doesn't release your anger, it just makes you more angry. Turns out bottling up your emotions is a good thing. If only someone could teach Tumblr that.

>>5370732
can't find it on there. anyone have a link to it?

>>5370641
simple OP. you HAVE to have them in some form to succeed in class. 90% of people in the class will buy them from the college book store. they want to make money.

>>5373154
The book in the OP?
>>5370722

>>5373163
yeah links don't work for me.

>>5373174
The shortlinks or the download links?

The second has a few mirrors.
http://libgen.org/get?nametype=orig&md5=1D81B1DF5B4C9E20498DE8A06F9DFA94

>>5370729
Who exactly do you think writes textbooks? And what textbooks would you expect a man that WRITES textbooks to assign?

>>5373868
I'd probably show a little humility or modesty and assign someone else's.

Maybe this attitude is why I've never gotten anywhere in life.

Education industry has growned into a for-profit business without any competition. Calculators that cost 100+, Books that cost 100+. Education that cost over 50k. Its just a scam that the government allows.

>>5374109
>Its just a scam that the government allows.

Enables... in the US.... by issuing nearly unlimited loans that are impossible to discharge. The rest of the developed world does not have nearly the same level of cost inflation.

Students and schools will buy required textbooks at any price, and the general population does not buy textbooks. The result of this is that a change in price of the textbooks does not result in a lot of people not buying the textbooks. Thus, it makes the most sense to have a high price on textbooks.

>>5374102
But theirs isn't the best, yours is the best, and you should know because you wrote the damn thing.

>>5374166

in other words its a shakedown

Because capitalism. Writing, publishing and selling a textbook isn't about the public good, it's about making dosh. Like pretty much everything in capitalism.

>>5374173
Yes. But students were are the ones who set the demand curve. We only have ourselves to blame.

>>5374179

>We have ourselves to blame

how did you reach that conclusion? the universities and professors force you to buy the books

>>5374196
Because not enough pirate it to collapse demand.