Book Prices Are High, But Not Bookstore’s Fault

To the editors:

I read with interest the letter titled “Bookstores, Not Publishers, To Blame For High Prices” (April 19). Textbook prices are high, but the selling price of a book begins with the publisher cost. The publisher sets the baseline cost to a retailer which includes a mark-up to cover the publisher’s costs of development, royalties, marketing, printing and a profit. The campus bookstore is a retailer and will take the publisher’s cost and add a mark-up that hopefully covers the store’s costs of ordering, receiving, selling and returning any unsold books. This is the same formula as the publisher, but with one exception, the average bookstore mark-up (which is a percentage of the selling price) is definitely lower than that taken by the publisher and is typically the lowest in a college bookstore. I don’t think anybody would disagree that the publisher’s price should cover its costs. The same should be true for the bookstore which sets a selling price that covers its costs of operations for sourcing, processing and selling the thousands of titles and tens of thousands of books needed each semester. This isn’t inflating costs, but the economics of retail.

As to used books being overpriced, used books are the best deal for a student. The store pays 50 percent of the selling price of the book to the student and then sells the book to another student for 25 percent off the cover price. This is a 50 percent savings to the selling student and a 25 percent savings to the buying student. The sale of used books may add to the cost of new books, but in the marketplace, the customer chooses and on campuses everywhere, students want the lower priced used books.

I agree that textbook prices are high, but the blame for high prices is unfairly placed on the bookstores. All the players in the textbook distribution chain—publishers, professors, administrators and booksellers—have to work closer and more efficiently to ensure that students get the best value and price when purchasing textbooks.

JEREMIAH P. MURPHY, JR. ’73

April 20, 2004

The writer is president of the Harvard Cooperative Society.