I have worked in textbook publishing for over a decade. Recently I was on a forum on Linkedin where someone stated that the cost of printing (which is increasingly being done in China and Mexico) textbooks today accounts for about 33% of the price of the book, the rest of the cost is in the development. That brings your $150 price down to about $99. Now, as you move it into an electronic media you have additional government regulations which add cost to the development to comply with section 508 accessibility rules. Computer technology has improved since I last was involved with research on this but it will add at least 10% to the cost of the development. Add in to that hyperlinking within the document and other interactive features that will be expected and you probably have an additional 10% (conservatively) to the cost of production. Now you are back up to about $120 or more for the book. If you have a more interactive book with video and "flash" put in then you could easily be back up to the original $150 price tag for the textbook.
Edit: Just an observation from the last decade, a lot of the printing expense has been eliminated already through technological developments like computer to plate and sending printing to other countries. One book that I worked on around 2000 the publisher spent about $60,000 on film, and close to an additional $20,000 on proofs. Most of that has been removed from the production costs already. This particular book sold for about $75 then and sells for the same now even given close to 10 years of inflation.
Yeah, I suppose the distribution is free.
And, what's a "forum on Linkedin"? Some sort of trade authority on textbook costing?
I would be happy if the new tablet also acted a digital notepad being that there are about 5-6 on the market and none of them natively support mac but all of them are USB.
instead of making the digital notepads a Mass storage device they make with windows drivers.
And, what's a "forum on Linkedin"? Some sort of trade authority on textbook costing?
Linkedin is a website for professional networking. There was a discussion on electronic textbooks in one of the discussion forums. I stated the source that way to be honest, I do not have firm statistics on the actual percentage that printing costs. My point is the same, as they eliminate part of the process there are "features" or government standards (section 508 accessibility rules) that will need to be addressed which will add cost to the production. This may not be a big deal with a novel where the publisher just has to put text and maybe a few graphics and not have to worry about the governments accessibility rules. However for a textbook, especially one sued in the K-12 market they will have to deal with these rules. This means more time spent on embedding metadata and descriptions for photo's and illustrations, testing to make sure screen reader programs read the page in a logical order, and setting up internal hyper-linking. I think that the market will also want some more interactive features added in like video and maybe interactive flash elements for reviews and to expand on the lesson. This will all add to the cost of producing the book, and decrease any savings that are realized from moving to the electronic format.
That 33% figure, does that include bulk shipping the product back to the US as well as warehouse storage (and maintenance, inventory, theft management, etc) as well as shipping to distributors and/or purchasers and finally the destruction of books that have been made obsolete and/or have been significantly updated where the old version is no longer relevant? Cause all those cost even 'trashing' can really start to add up and if you warehouse anywhere NEAR a major metro region then the storage cost will be an even larger number.
Or has the book industry taken a cue from the computer industry where they us a system like the CE industry where inventory is kept low and books are 'built on demand' to keep unsold inventory levels to a minimum and 'the channel' (distributers and booksellers) is where the lions share of books are inventoried?
That 33% figure, does that include bulk shipping the product back to the US as well as warehouse storage (and maintenance, inventory, theft management, etc) as well as shipping to distributors and/or purchasers and finally the destruction of books that have been made obsolete and/or have been significantly updated where the old version is no longer relevant? Cause all those cost even 'trashing' can really start to add up and if you warehouse anywhere NEAR a major metro region then the storage cost will be an even larger number.
Or has the book industry taken a cue from the computer industry where they us a system like the CE industry where inventory is kept low and books are 'built on demand' to keep unsold inventory levels to a minimum and 'the channel' (distributers and booksellers) is where the lions share of books are inventoried?
Dave,
I don't know if warehousing is taken into consideration in those figures. I do know that inventories are kept a lot lower than they were a decade ago and printing costs have been reduced with the competition from Mexico. I would imagine that shipping costs from Mexico are comparable to using a US based printer. I also know that China has taken a good percentage of the printing market as well if there is time for the freight containers to make the journey. Still, given the market and additional "feature" that the publishers are likely to include due to competition and the limited market dominated by 3 publishers I would not expect a great reduction in prices, at least for the K-12 market. The college market might see a better price break due to the nature of the market, but I imagine that they will keep the prices well above what you see for your consumer or trade publishing.
Comments
I have worked in textbook publishing for over a decade. Recently I was on a forum on Linkedin where someone stated that the cost of printing (which is increasingly being done in China and Mexico) textbooks today accounts for about 33% of the price of the book, the rest of the cost is in the development. That brings your $150 price down to about $99. Now, as you move it into an electronic media you have additional government regulations which add cost to the development to comply with section 508 accessibility rules. Computer technology has improved since I last was involved with research on this but it will add at least 10% to the cost of the development. Add in to that hyperlinking within the document and other interactive features that will be expected and you probably have an additional 10% (conservatively) to the cost of production. Now you are back up to about $120 or more for the book. If you have a more interactive book with video and "flash" put in then you could easily be back up to the original $150 price tag for the textbook.
Edit: Just an observation from the last decade, a lot of the printing expense has been eliminated already through technological developments like computer to plate and sending printing to other countries. One book that I worked on around 2000 the publisher spent about $60,000 on film, and close to an additional $20,000 on proofs. Most of that has been removed from the production costs already. This particular book sold for about $75 then and sells for the same now even given close to 10 years of inflation.
Yeah, I suppose the distribution is free.
And, what's a "forum on Linkedin"? Some sort of trade authority on textbook costing?
instead of making the digital notepads a Mass storage device they make with windows drivers.
Tisk Tisk.
Yeah, I suppose the distribution is free.
And, what's a "forum on Linkedin"? Some sort of trade authority on textbook costing?
Linkedin is a website for professional networking. There was a discussion on electronic textbooks in one of the discussion forums. I stated the source that way to be honest, I do not have firm statistics on the actual percentage that printing costs. My point is the same, as they eliminate part of the process there are "features" or government standards (section 508 accessibility rules) that will need to be addressed which will add cost to the production. This may not be a big deal with a novel where the publisher just has to put text and maybe a few graphics and not have to worry about the governments accessibility rules. However for a textbook, especially one sued in the K-12 market they will have to deal with these rules. This means more time spent on embedding metadata and descriptions for photo's and illustrations, testing to make sure screen reader programs read the page in a logical order, and setting up internal hyper-linking. I think that the market will also want some more interactive features added in like video and maybe interactive flash elements for reviews and to expand on the lesson. This will all add to the cost of producing the book, and decrease any savings that are realized from moving to the electronic format.
Or has the book industry taken a cue from the computer industry where they us a system like the CE industry where inventory is kept low and books are 'built on demand' to keep unsold inventory levels to a minimum and 'the channel' (distributers and booksellers) is where the lions share of books are inventoried?
That 33% figure, does that include bulk shipping the product back to the US as well as warehouse storage (and maintenance, inventory, theft management, etc) as well as shipping to distributors and/or purchasers and finally the destruction of books that have been made obsolete and/or have been significantly updated where the old version is no longer relevant? Cause all those cost even 'trashing' can really start to add up and if you warehouse anywhere NEAR a major metro region then the storage cost will be an even larger number.
Or has the book industry taken a cue from the computer industry where they us a system like the CE industry where inventory is kept low and books are 'built on demand' to keep unsold inventory levels to a minimum and 'the channel' (distributers and booksellers) is where the lions share of books are inventoried?
Dave,
I don't know if warehousing is taken into consideration in those figures. I do know that inventories are kept a lot lower than they were a decade ago and printing costs have been reduced with the competition from Mexico. I would imagine that shipping costs from Mexico are comparable to using a US based printer. I also know that China has taken a good percentage of the printing market as well if there is time for the freight containers to make the journey. Still, given the market and additional "feature" that the publishers are likely to include due to competition and the limited market dominated by 3 publishers I would not expect a great reduction in prices, at least for the K-12 market. The college market might see a better price break due to the nature of the market, but I imagine that they will keep the prices well above what you see for your consumer or trade publishing.