Selling used college textbooks is a major segment of online bookselling. If you deal in used textbooks you may have noticed that a growing number of them proudly proclaim that they are made from “100% recycled materials”. Does this mean that the textbook industry is becoming “green”?
Hardly.
In reality Textbook publishers are among the least “green” in the book business. Their business model is predicated on churning out “new” editions of each book just about every year, resulting in massive amounts of waste.
Why does every textbook need a new edition every year? Has the Pythagorean Theorem changed since last year? What about the atomic weight of hydrogen? Did the bombing of Pearl Harbor happen on a different year than previously thought?
Of course not.
And yet textbook publishers roll out a batch of brand new editions each and every year.
The sad truth is that textbooks are a multi-billion dollar business dominated by only a handful of publishers. Those publishers (more…)