The CP books are definitely less than half the typical textbook price. I don't think I've had any texts in my MS program that listed for less than $70; and I had one that listed for $140. I went online and found a used international edition (read: "paperback for countries that can't afford $140") for $40. The CP book I'm interested in, on Haskell, is $22.50 at Amazon, which is less than any of the less-academic Haskell books.
And that pretty well explains the sharp rise in textbook prices lately: when the Internet makes the used market so strong, a book that doesn't pay for itself the first semester never will. So the publishers raise prices, so more students look for used books (and more students have to sell their old books to afford new ones), and so the profit margin goes down some more, and the publishers raise prices again.
So CP is trying to break the cycle, and sell textbooks so cheaply the used market can't compete. I'm tempted to buy their Haskell text, just to support them. (I've already found a PDF at the authors' Web site, but I'm not about to print out 449 pages.)
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Much less than half
Date: 2008-11-10 08:22 pm (UTC)And that pretty well explains the sharp rise in textbook prices lately: when the Internet makes the used market so strong, a book that doesn't pay for itself the first semester never will. So the publishers raise prices, so more students look for used books (and more students have to sell their old books to afford new ones), and so the profit margin goes down some more, and the publishers raise prices again.
So CP is trying to break the cycle, and sell textbooks so cheaply the used market can't compete. I'm tempted to buy their Haskell text, just to support them. (I've already found a PDF at the authors' Web site, but I'm not about to print out 449 pages.)