Most expensive school book you've had? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 05:56:16 pm
content: I just had to pay $177 for a book on MS Access. No eBook version, no used version, no rental. Access 2010 for Dummies is like 30 or 40 dollars. Its the most expensive dead tree that I've bought so far. What about you guys?

author: Frost
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 06:08:16 pm
content: The most expensive school book I bought was definitely the Tipler.

author: kfitch42
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 06:22:09 pm
content: IIRC my advanced calc textbook was just under $200, and just over 100 pages. This was in the previous millennium. Given the inflation rates for textbooks (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/college-textbook-prices-increase_n_2409153.html), I fully expect this book to cost its weight in gold by now.

author: IntegratedValve
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 07:34:42 pm
content: Academic book price is around $170 on average which is ridiculous.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 07:43:41 pm
content: Quote from: Stonent on January 16, 2014, 05:56:16 pmSerious question: what would have happened if you didn't buy the book?Because although I can afford it, I would never pay that much for such a mundane and temporarily useful book. Commercial software changes from year to year and such books quickly become dated.Furthermore, anything you could ever need to know about MS Access can be found online.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 07:46:44 pm
content: Good point, IanB.Most of the material for my classes is easily available either online or in books in the university library (or already in my head). I never buy any textbooks at all until I get into class and find out whether we will be assigned homework directly out of the book. If so, I buy the book and bitch a lot. If not, I can buy awhole lot of gaswith that money...

author: smashedProton
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 07:52:31 pm
content: Torrent it. Or use a old book and get the problems by taking a pic of someone's book. Especially if the professor wrote the boom

author: Falcon69
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 08:55:58 pm
content: $185 for my calculus book, but i's good for calc 1, 2. 3 and 4. all 4 quarters, so that doesnt sting as bad

author: Dongulus
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 09:18:26 pm
content: Quote from: Falcon69 on January 16, 2014, 08:55:58 pmI my school used the same Calc book for all 4 quarters too, but we were using a text that was a couple of editions behind. The school bookstore was trying to sell it for $180. Since most other schools used the most current edition, I found the text I needed for less than $15 shipped on amazon. That would have been the best score on any textbook that I ever made if not for one book I bought online that my school bought back for more than I payed for.I think my most expensive book I can remember paying for was "Electric Machinery Fundamentals" for $130.In the latter half of college we were often using books that were somewhat useful to have on hand. I started buying international editions because they are much cheaper and I didn't have to worry about selling it back if I knew I was probably going to keep it.

author: SArepairman
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 10:18:38 pm
content: buy the book, take pictures of every page (easily done with a DSLR camera on a tripod) and return it.then make a pdf.easily done in 30 minutes.

author: Kohanbash
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 11:29:15 pm
content: I needed the "Lunar Sourcebook: A User's Guide to the Moon" for some research that I was doing which costs over $200.Shortly after getting it a digital copy was released online...

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 11:49:57 pm
content: Quite a few years ago I bought an Oz wiring rules book (standards) for no more than $50, hardback. Now outdated I bought the latest version $160 softcover, requires 2 horses pulling in opposite directions to keep it open

author: Kjetil
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 05:25:40 am
content: The material technology book we have this semester has a list price of US$323, is not available electronically, and is really hard to get a hold of used as everyone wants to keep theirs..

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 05:56:31 am
content: I personally did not buy it, but when I was a student I had some friends that were studying to become doctors (medicine) and they were complaining about an expensive book they had to buy. In today's money and considering the purchasing power you guys have in US, the price for this book would be about 500$ in today's money.Students were collecting money to buy one copy, then make copies of it for everyone in the study group.

author: casinada
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 06:42:19 am
content: All those university books are really expensive because the numbers produced are relatively small compared to the regular books that you buy on a regular bookstore. Some of the textbooks make it and are used on other universities and even translated to other languages, some never make it beyond the particular college or university. In the past that was the only way to make books but now with computers anybody can make a book as you can see that some are offered for free by the professors who wrote them.

author: johnh
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 06:46:02 am
content: The book they recommend. But, the lecturer doesn't use.Whilst doing a TAFE Certificate Electronics course in the 70's. The lecturer didn't like book that had been selected. Instead handed out photocopied material that he had put together.

author: VK5RC
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 06:58:27 am
content: For work, I subscribe to a Medical "Electronic" UpToDate "Book"It is staggeringly good/useful but it is about $AUD 400 + PER YEAR !

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 07:23:27 am
content: Quote from: casinada on January 17, 2014, 06:42:19 amYeah, I'd agree with you, university books are expensive.In my case however, that book was expensive because it was sort of "the world authority" when it came to the subject, something about surgery procedures for some diseases, symptoms.. stuff like that. I remember it was available commercially in other languages as well so I could have ordered it from Amazon but the local version was translated and reviewed for corectness by some doctors... it was really expensive as it has full color pages to show how diseases manifest, xrays etc etc

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 07:32:05 am
content: In my final year at bachelor I had to get the book "Power Electronics". At every book store it was about 170 euro's (200$+). Our average book price was like 60 euro's, so considerably more expensive.The first class just 1 guy had the book. So we searched Ebay world wide and found a reseller for just 40$. We bought 15.A week later they were in, and the reseller guy went like "this is very good sale! if you need any more books plz contact". The book used this cheap paper, you could almost read the page underlying with enough ambient light. On the book there this label on the side shouting "NEW". We were wondering, why is it a sticker? We peeled it off, and it said "This book is for not use or sale outside of India"Content wasn't too bad (power electronics is quite interesting), moreover there were not many differences with the "teachers" book. The only one we could spot is there was a page difference of 2-3 pages at like chapter 4 and onwards.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 07:40:49 am
content: Quote from: IanB on January 16, 2014, 07:43:41 pmIt is a required course for my degree. The assignments are tied to the end of chapter questions.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 07:42:41 am
content: Quote from: sdk32285 on January 16, 2014, 11:29:15 pmTherese some kind of lab tied to the book as well. There's a card with a website login.

author: ivan747
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 11:42:16 am
content: The perks of living in a undeveloped country: nobody sells books over US$100 as no one would buy them.The most I would be willing to pay is $100 for the Art of Electronics. I wouldn't pay hundreds of dollars for a book I can buy used or buy locally in Spanish for maybe half the price.College books for medical stuff are extremely expensive though.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 03:40:11 pm
content: I paid well over $100 for my Foley and van Dam computer graphics book in about 1990. Absolutely worth it's weight in gold. I've used it so much over the years that it's literally just falling part. I've used it for everything from actual computer graphics to stealing algorithms here and there to solve completely unrelated problems. For example, I built an automated PM fiber attach station once. I used some algorithms from the book to take points off a Poincare sphere, project them onto a best fit plane, figure out the optimum point, project it back to the sphere and then monitor everything in real time and optimize the launch angle. A lot of the basic fits and projection techniques are straight out of that stupid graphics bookIt's in 3rd edition and now available NEW for $87. It's still a monstrous book....1200+ pages long.

author: strangelovemd12
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 04:00:44 pm
content: The cool thing about only graduating high school is I never had to pay for any shitty books I didn't want. I remember the replacement cost for my senior chem book was $135 to $165USD in '08, but it was technically a college level course. (If <80hrs of lab time counts as college level!) Come to think of it, that was a completely new book, which probably made an $80 difference. The college offed all the error filled 1st editions on us. Did you know Avogadro's number is actually seven? Tangent: I also "stole" the copy of Night that was assigned to me, but have since bought several new copies, as I'm always passing them on.As far as general "educational" books, I don't get into anything specialized enough to get into triple digit costs. I mostly read scientific journals, research papers and datasheets these days anyway.I'm sure there are some great textbooks out there worth (close to) the cover price, but I can't imagine taking the plunge without some solid recommendations.The textbook I'm currently reading, "Manufacturing Processes," only cost $16. But it was published in 1947...

author: iceisfun
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2014, 11:37:23 pm
content: i have a calc book that was about 190.

author: Tinkerer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 12:05:02 am
content: Those books were expensive, why would I want to remember what I paid for em.They made us buy them and they were useful for only like a semester or two and then you either keep them, go through the hassle of selling on like ebay or something, or sell it back to the store. Alot of people sold them back for what was usually something like 10-40% of what they bought them for. The store would then promptly resell the books at full price making loads of money. Its almost criminal.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 01:45:46 am
content: Just wait till the 3rd edition of The Art Of Electronics comes out. Get ready to eat cheap Ramen and cancel your cable TV for a couple months so you can afford it.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 02:32:52 am
content: Quote from: casinada on January 17, 2014, 06:42:19 amThen the teacher shouldn't make a book ... it's purely self enrichment at that point. Making course materials is part of his job and getting it printed out and bound at the university print shop costs very little.

author: IntegratedValve
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 06:40:29 am
content: Quote from: Tinkerer on January 18, 2014, 12:05:02 amThis is called "capitalism" where people lose, business wins!

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 08:46:37 am
content: Quote from: Marco on January 18, 2014, 02:32:52 amTeachers earn nearly nothing from books. Publishers have ways to ensure this. Teachers writer books for vanity reasons, or often because they need to - publish or perish.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 09:21:52 am
content: We got specific course material at uni as well, and they were the cheapest around. I think we paid the print shop a standard print fee, as they were all 10 euro's or so.If you imagine an authorized book with shipping + resellers costs 50-80 euro's, that's a lot more expensive. You do get more pages/information though, so decide what wins.I was always quite fond of university material, because they were printed on A4. This would fit perfectly in my laptop bag, because a 15.4" laptop is around the size of A4. And so could fit side by side.Why are all other books (still) printed on smaller material? A 800 page book, even with very thin paper, makes it very thick and hard to carry around.

author: Noise Floor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 03:08:38 pm
content: The most I paid was ~$200 for a single book, but the course also had a lab manual and supplies making the material cost of the course over $350.The worst for me is when a book is "required" and then you end up not using it at all. I take that back, the worst is when you do have to use it and it turns out the book is worthless.That said, there have been several text books that were really well done and proved to be a great technical reference or change my view of the world.

author: Macbeth
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 04:06:17 pm
content: Am I so glad I only did a 2 year City & Guilds course in Electronics Service Engineering. The course specific books were all less than £10 and very good too. I also didn't have to get into student debt as I got to keep my dole! I did get an apprenticeship out of it and thoroughly enjoyed F.E. college (I guess "Community College" in the USA.) This was late '80s / early '90s. Anyway, that "small market" excuse for over expensive books doesn't wash with me.The full set of Amiga ROM Kernel reference manuals were the most expensive books I ever bought, around £30 each IIRC. Nothing to do with school though.I did read on reddit about a particularly mercenary uni professor. She published her very expensive (>$100's) own book and it HAD to be used for the course. She ensured nobody could sell them on by printing forms with a perforation, and demanded students had to hand in their work on her custom forms! Of course the added cost of the printer going to this effort was muliplied and passed on to the students too.

author: manticore00
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 06:46:19 pm
content: I wonder how long it'll be until professors wise up and start using things like Kindle or iBooks publishing instead of using the usual academic publishers?

author: wiss
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 07:36:16 pm
content: "We" post lab compendiums as pdf on the course webpage so students can print the material them selfs, quite a few end up reding it of their iphones during the lab...

author: Tinkerer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 08:20:30 pm
content: Quote from: IntegratedValve on January 18, 2014, 06:40:29 amIts not capitalism when the store probably had an agreement with the university(and possibly the city) and what not to insure that no one else could do business involving college books there. Otherwise I have no idea why there was a single book store for college books when by all rights, there should probably have been 2 or 3 competing with each other. No, dont know this as fact, but I certainly suspect it.

author: smashedProton
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 08:41:32 pm
content: Quote from: Tinkerer on January 18, 2014, 08:20:30 pmYes, that's called fascism.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 08:57:23 pm
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on January 18, 2014, 08:46:37 amA vanity press book used at one university is not going to get citations, I doubt it will help him fill any quotas. If it's just pure vanity that still makes him a bad teacher.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 09:10:39 pm
content: Quote from: manticore00 on January 18, 2014, 06:46:19 pmDoesn't really work, if they can't hide behind the cover of a publisher the moral bankruptcy of teachers who use their own expensive books just becomes a little too blatant.

author: Fsck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 09:15:56 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on January 18, 2014, 09:10:39 pmshows you the quality of your education. some profs here write their own "textbook" (giant pdf, free!) for their courses. these tend to be, however, more specialized courses that most people won't encounter.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2014, 09:38:08 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on January 18, 2014, 08:57:23 pmI did say nothing about vanity press books. I wrote about the motivations for teachers writing books. They earn nearly nothing with regular publishers.I have occasionally been asked to write a textbook. Some well known regular publishers use a shotgun approach to find new authors (Contacting you if you published a paper, and then pulling out if they figure out you aren't a native speaker. But that is another story). The contracts from regular publishers are a joke. It doesn't make financially sense for the author, especially if you take the effort to write the book into account. I think Dave made a similar experience.Just to mention one trick of regular publishers: Different payments for normal and special editions, and a very generous definition of what makes a special edition. The payment for normal editions not being great, but the payment for any special edition being a joke.For a start the publisher goes ahead and publishes a normal edition with very few copies, like 1000 copies. As an author you just get a few $ per copy of a normal edition. Actually you get nothing payed, until the advance payment is redeemed. Publishing a low-volume edition even makes sense. If the book is only used in the class of the author they likely sell less than 50 or 100 copies/year. 1000 copies would be good enough for a 10 years supply. There is no point in printing more.A common mistake new authors make is to assume that most of the copies that will ever be printed are part of a normal edition. Should the publisher ever needs/wants to publish another edition they do it as a special edition (different paper, different size, different cover, different binding). And the rate for a special edition is a few cents per copy. Same if the publisher sells the rights for some overseas printing, or for translations.

author: logictom
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 19, 2014, 09:26:01 am
content: I bought some quite expensive books in first year of uni, not knowing any better. Only used a couple and the one's I did need I only had use for a couple of chapters.After that I found and started buying my books fromAbeBooks, you can get your hands on most books for a fraction of the cost - usually only used a couple of times by someone else who bought them for uni.

author: senso
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2014, 05:18:40 pm
content: Quote from: Fsck on January 18, 2014, 09:15:56 pmAround here a couple teachers have wrote some books, they give the original doc and pdf files, because the book costs 100€ and they receive 1€ for each sold book, they could not care less about money made from sold books, so free pdf's for every body.

author: ampdoctor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2014, 07:36:53 pm
content: My calculus and physics books were pretty brutal but they were good for all three courses in each...unless they decide to change the book mid sequence...which NEVER happens! In that case you've got to buy them all over again. Yes I wound up with 3 different introductory calculus texts.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2014, 07:51:43 pm
content: £19. A maths textbook, required for MyMathLab (horrid site, but regardless...) None required for 2nd year.Finally, a university that doesn't rip its students off on text books, at least, the engineering department doesn't.

author: IntegratedValve
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2014, 08:27:19 pm
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on January 18, 2014, 08:46:37 amAnd we hear the same about universities making no profit out of student tuition fees. It's like saying it's not me who sets the price so don't blame me.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2014, 09:14:51 pm
content: Quote from: IntegratedValve on January 19, 2014, 08:27:19 pmYou can put the fingers in your ear and sing lalala. That doesn't change the fact that the teachers have no control over the price of their books. They get a laughable amount per copy.But I am sure a lot of people would like to hear if you know a reputable publisher who pays out more than peanuts to the average university teacher. So do you know one? Care to let us in on the secret?

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2014, 10:10:49 pm
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on January 19, 2014, 09:14:51 pmIt's all about what "publish" means. If you feel you can do without the services of a professional publisher you can self publish. Of course now you will have to lay out a lot of money from your own pocket that the publisher would have spent for you. So your net gain on sales may be no greater and may even be less.

author: PedroDaGr8
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2014, 10:36:29 pm
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on January 19, 2014, 09:14:51 pmI often disagree with B@W but in this case he is spot on with respect to textbook prices. Teachers do NOT have any control on the prices. At some universities, especially in the lower level classes, the teacher doesn't even get to chose the text book for their class. It is chosen by a committee. I've known many chemistry professors who don't like the intro to chemistry text by Raymond Chang. They have no option because it's the most popular book, that's what the committee went with.I have had professors that were writing open source text books. The first time I encountered that I asked the professor why? He said, "Because you make basically nothing for your time spent. I've been fooled once and that's enough. I got in this to teach and develop students not line the publishers pockets at the expense of my students." In one of the advanced classes I took with him he went out of his way to find an affordable quality book. It was $55 new, for an upper level book. One area that teachers could have an affect is if more teachers were price conscious it would provide a downward pressure on prices. This professor routinely demoed dozens of books from obscure publishers looking for well priced gems.I truly think in the future self publishing will be the way to go. As more classes switch to ebooks (that's a separate topic) it would be foolish to go with a traditional publisher. If I was a professor, I'd get together with a professor in the graphics design and/or comp sci department. Write and publish my own multimedia textbook. Sell it for $40 or so, split the profits accordingly between all involved. Quite frankly it's a win-win for everyone. Students get a better text for all types of learners, a lower price, authors make real money, control is no longer in the publishers hands.Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

author: IntegratedValve
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2014, 12:14:42 am
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on January 19, 2014, 09:14:51 pmYou are so funny.But maybe you are right because those super expensive texts focus on colors, photos, paper quality, covering, and binding, which is the work of publishers, while having crappy content, so yeah no wonder why authors don't get good share of the profit.

author: smashedProton
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 09:31:58 pm
content: Or you can pirate your textbooks and not participate in the system!

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 10:11:56 pm
content: Screw text books. The real gold is the solution manuals. Think back..... How much would you have paid for a solution manual if you couldn't find a copy of one.I remember there was one time in a calculus class where about 80% of the class had the solution manual and on one assignment there was an error in the solution manual for a problem. Well about 80% of the class magically made that same error in their solution.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 10:26:10 pm
content: Quote from: IntegratedValve on January 20, 2014, 12:14:42 amI recommend you grow up and then we talk again.