6 Aug
2008
6 Aug
'08
7:31 a.m.
here. There, they cost $2-$10, and we're not
talking pirated copies.
Printed cheaply (phonebook type paper) but still very serviceable, the
content is exactly the same. (Yes, in english. There'd be a chinese
or hindi subtitle on the cover, and some front matter, but the rest is
the same)
The publishers know that unless they price them that low, noone would
buy the books.
Authors also often get a lower royalty percentage on those
than on US sales. That doesn't cut a lot out of the retail
cost, but it does cut a little. My understanding is that
most publishers contract those out to companies that specialize
in that sort of thing. They wouldn't stand up to library
use, nor would they be good for those of us that keep books
on our shelves for decades as references. But for a student
who wants to use it one term and throw it away or give it
to a friend, they work. One thing you've got to be careful
about using them here is that the domestic version might be
on a later printing with corrections or changes in the exercises.
Those changes may not have made their way through the pipeline
into the "phonebook" editions. (I like that characterization.)
But this is straying way off topic, so I'll stop now.
BLS