It seems that all college students, current or former, have been angered at the cost of their college textbooks. According to the U.S. PIRG, textbook prices have increased at four times the rate of inflation since 1994 and now cost students an average of $900 per year. That’s as much as 20% of tuition at an average four-year institution and 50% of tuition at a community college. While textbooks are a necessary cost for your higher education, most students are left wondering why they cost so much. Adding to that frustration is the simple fact that you, as a student, have no say in the matter – a professor assigns a book and you’re required to purchase it. So, is it the professor’s fault for assigning an expensive book? Or the publisher’s for making it so expensive? What about the bookstore’s for charging so much? Surely they’re making some crazy profits, right? Each of these is an article by itself so for now, let’s talk about how a college bookstore gets their books and calculates their prices.

Getting the Books

Don’t you wonder why your bookstore only has a few used copies of a book when there are countless available online? Here’s why – once professors notify their bookstore which book(s) they’ll use in their course, the bookstore places a bulk used book order with their used book wholesaler. One of four big-time wholesalers can control a bookstore’s operations & distribution: Nebraska Book, Missouri Book, Follett, and Barnes & Noble. Typically, a campus bookstore will sign a multi-year contract with one of these companies. Once bound, the bookstore will request the desired number of books based on class enrollment. The problem arises consistently, as every company only has a set number of used copies available.

Here’s an example: let’s say your bookstore needs 50 copies of Psychology, 2^nd edition by Ciccarelli, ISBN 0136004288. Let’s assume they’ve contracted with Missouri Book Service to provide their used books and that MBS has 600 copies of this book. If MBS has contracts with 500 bookstores around the U.S. and 60 of those request 50 used copies of Psychology, what happens? Every bookstore can’t get 50 because there aren’t enough to go around. So, your bookstore might get 10 when they need 50. Where do they get the other 40? Brand new from the publisher.

So, on the shelves, they have 10 used copies and 40 new copies, priced at $91.10 and $137.00, respectively. Better hope you’re one of the first ten.

Pricing the Books

Once a campus bookstore builds their inventory for the coming semester, they adhere to standard pricing guidelines that are practiced in virtually every campus bookstore.

Here’s the big secret – campus bookstores make more on the sale of a used book than a new book.  Why? Because new books have a standard mark-up of 20-25% whereas used books have a standard mark-up of 33%.

Let’s look again at Psychology, 2^nd edition by Ciccarelli, ISBN 0136004288.

New book

Cost to the bookstore, sold by publisher: $102.75 – 109.60.

Cost to student: $137.00

Used book

Cost to the bookstore, sold by used wholesaler: $68.50

Cost to student: $91.10

So how is Free Textbooks able to consistently beat the bookstore, selling books at 30-90% less? Because we build inventory from a variety of sources – wholesaler accounts, bulk resellers, marketplace sellers, and student buybacks. Doing so allows us to get any quantity of used books then pass these on to students.

Hope that helps!

Questions or comments? Post your thoughts below… 

What is Free Textbooks? Founded in January 2009, FreeTextbooks.com is an online textbook buyer and seller with a real-world presence at the University of Alabama, Samford University, the University of Alabama-Huntsville, Auburn University, and Troy University. We sell for less, buy for more, and offer a unique cash back program (so you can earn free books).  FreeTextbooks.com is also a social venture, helping to meet the underprivileged’s most basic needs – food, clean water, clothing, education, and health.