![]() Finally, publishers jumped into rental programs, allowing them to capture revenue from what used to be a used book sale. Another approach was to offer loose-leaf editions that wouldn’t survive beyond a single student’s use. One was to increase the frequency of new editions, making used versions of the previous edition obsolete. The death spiral led to other strategies for maintaining publisher economics. This spiral highlights the delicate balance between maintaining margins and pricing textbooks at a level students can afford and shows the potential consequences of pushing prices too high. Ultimately, the decline in unit volume outweighed the increase in pricing, causing significant economic harm to publishers. This caused more students to stop buying new books, further decreasing unit sales for publishers. As students sought lower-priced alternatives, the need for, and supply of, used books grew, making it easier for students to find affordable options. The unintended consequence of this spiral was that it improved the economics of the used book market. This led to a decline in unit volume for publishers, resulting in even higher prices to maintain margins. However, as prices continued to rise students began seeking alternatives such as open educational resources (OER), used books, old editions, international editions, and piracy. Initially, publishers believed that textbooks were not price-sensitive, since students had no choice but to purchase the books recommended by their professors. The print pricing death spiral is a phenomenon that arose in the publishing industry as a result of the need to maintain profit margins to meet the economic demands of owners. It took publishers many years of painful experiences from increases in textbook prices and the effect of these increases on unit volume, which resulted in the print pricing death spiral. ![]() Most importantly, these digital tools help publishers meet students where they are, in a multimedia environment through which most now prefer to learn.” Instead of seeking techniques to artificially preserve the business model of printed textbooks in a digital environment, courseware promotes the publisher’s economic interests while reducing student costs, easing faculty teaching burdens, and improving student engagement and learning success. As Brian Jacobs, CEO of PanOpen and a longtime observer of higher education, puts it: “Interactive courseware reconstitutes value for stakeholders-publishers, students, and faculty.
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