Affordable Content Models
Marguerite Stocker
by Marguerite Stocker, Monmouth University (bio)
Introduction
The mission statement of nearly every independent college bookstore includes a focus on students. Operating outside of the traditional, for-profit corporate structure allows these stores to take a customer-centered—in this case, student-centered— approach, whether through cost-competitive offerings or product availability. This chapter examines how the independent college bookstore can play a vital role in providing students affordable course material.
This chapter examines how the independent college bookstore can play a vital role in providing students affordable course material.
Until recently, college stores could be cost-competitive by selling old editions of textbooks, sourcing used books from wholesalers, and buying books back from students. But when publishers began revising editions more frequently, they eliminated the bookstore’s ability to leverage these cost-reducing work-arounds. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016), textbook prices rose more than three times the rate of inflation between January, 1977, and June, 2015—an increase of 1,041%. Publishers note many reasons for this increase (such as the rising cost of paper, royalties, and marketing costs), but none have resulted in improved content.
The Textbook Publishing Market Takes Shape
The textbook publishing market has experienced the same ebbs and flows as the overall publishing industry, notably those marked by mergers, acquisitions, and consolidations. The resulting market has become an oligopoly (Larivière, Haustein, & Mongeon, 2015), with a small number of companies controlling the supply and distribution of course materials.
Publishing houses started merging in the 1960s, with Random House’s purchase of Alfred A. Knopf in 1960 (Osnos, 2012). In 1975, Gulf+Western acquired Simon & Schuster (keeping the Simon & Schuster imprint), which, between 1984 and 1994, acquired more than 60 other publishing firms, including Prentice Hall and Macmillan (Simon & Schuster, 2018). With the addition of these educational, professional, and reference imprints, Simon & Schuster’s revenue grew from $200 million in 1983 to $830 million in 2017 (Publishers Weekly, 2018a).
As seen by looking at the five largest publishers, the mergers and acquisitions continuing into the 21st century have had significant impact on the publishing market:
- The largest publisher of course material, Simon & Schuster’s educational division (including Prentice Hall) was sold to Pearson PLC in 1998 (Pearson, 2018).
- McGraw Hill acquired Random House’s college division in 1998 for more than $200 million, and in the following year entered into a 50/50 joint venture with Macmillan, combining their elementary, secondary, and vocational education businesses. The company bought out Macmillan’s half for $161 million in 1993, and in the next year McGraw Hill’s three business segments (educational and profess