I found an interesting article on the Inside Higher Ed website by Kenneth Green. Green examines the difficulties facing the current model of publishing textbooks and what factors drive up costs.
He also addresses how the necessity of supplying essentially free supplements/ancillaries affects the author, the publisher, and the students:
The ancillaries would be essential, and development costs for the ancillaries would be significant. But the industry exec reminded me that there was no money associated with any of these ancillaries: absent a separate workbook for students, the only revenue associated for Widgets 1e and the accompanying ancillaries came from the sale of my textbook to students. And the only time the publisher would realize any significant revenue from the sales of Green/Widgets would be during the first year of the new edition.
This, he explained, was the conundrum confronting the publishing industry: The ancillaries are essential part of the total package for the any textbook. Yet the ancillaries generally generate no revenue.
The piece gives a good overview of the conundrum facing the higher education publishing industry. It also helps everyone who buys those books understand why costs are so high.
