Megan > Status Update

BTW, are you still reading The Casual Vacancy?:)

Hmm... short answer is no, lol.

Long answer...back in Oct when I was reading it, went out of town for a few days & couldn't fathom lugging that massive hardback through the airport & elsewhere on vaca. It got put aside and lighter books keep getting in the way. It will be read eventually ;)

I'm MIA till christmas, but just wanted to say hello♥

Hello =) Hope all is well with you & Kitty!

Interesting article. I hope the Supreme Court doesn't uphold the lower court's ruling. It's a scary thought.

I was happy to see your status pop up on my feed. I've missed your reviews and comments. :)

=) I've missed chatting with you on here too! Funny to miss being away from a website, lol. But you know how addictive GR is ;)

It will be interesting to follow this & see where it goes. When the publisher mentioned recouping the costs involved in making the books (aside from the obvious costs of printing & distributing) it made me think of so many articles I've read where publishers use the same line of reasoning to justify the high cost of ebooks.

Furthermore, I have a hard time believing that publishers cut prices overseas as a favor to people who cannot afford high priced textbooks. Like all businesses, they exist to make money. If they weren't profitable overseas they wouldn't publish & distribute there. If they can distribute globally so cheaply and make money then it seems they should be able to distribute books at the same price within their own country and still make money ...says the woman who knows nothing of economics or business, lol!

It also surprises me that reselling textbooks within this country wasn't mentioned. Obviously schools and individuals resell them both in person and online. Greedy publishers!

Megan wrote: "=) I've missed chatting with you on here too! Funny to miss being away from a website, lol. But you know how addictive GR is ;)

It will be interesting to follow this & see where it goes. When the ..."

It's nice to see you back on the feeds too :)

I've been a recipient of those textbooks "Low Price editions" (they're only black and white and printed on cheap paper) but they are still quite costly. (What can you do? Education is expensive.) They do explicitly say that you can't sell them outside of the authorized country. Maybe they have that rule because they foresaw this situation. I guess the publishers just saw a chance to make more money? I'm not an expert in publishing business anyway...

I still feel sorry for the kid who sold those textbooks.

Megan wrote: "=) I've missed chatting with you on here too! Funny to miss being away from a website, lol. But you know how addictive GR is ;)

It will be interesting to follow this & see where it goes. When the ..."

I agree, Megan. It doesn't seem right that a publisher should be able to dictate what countries a book can be sold to. I also call BS on their assertion that they wouldn't make money if textbook prices were lower. We all know they make huge profits on textbooks, particularly because new editions come out every year with slight changes that might be significant so people have to buy them.

I was also thinking about ebooks when I read the article, both their pricing and the fact that they're mere licenses, which means they can't be given away, lent, sold, or even converted into another format (legally) for personal use. I think something needs to be done about those policies. It would be great if I could donate some of my ebooks to my local library. Some of them I definitely won't be reading ever again and I the libraries could really use them. I doubt it will ever happen but it's a nice idea.