Re: US consumer purchase of international editions

[Richard Gottlieb <rhg3@greyhouse.com>]

John Cox has got it right.  It was with a great deal of care and 
thought that companys like Addison Wesley and John Wiley,in the 
'60's produced low cost "student" editions in, and for, the third 
world. Doubt very much if they had any significant profits from 
this activity. They regarded it as an act of international 
citizenship.

Importing these types of works back into the lst world will 
damage the economic models of the US publishers, to the detriment 
of all.

Interestingly there is a parallel here with the pharma industry. 
US pharmas do the research, and charge high prices to their US 
consumers to support the enormous research and govt approval 
costs. Then either through licenses, patent rip-offs or govt paid 
health plans, citizens around the world pay significantly lower 
prices.

Personal experience in the last week where on a trip to Toronto, 
found that my eyedrops up there cost less than the deductible on 
my US health insurance plan.

US pharmas attempts to keep out foreign produced products 
attacked as "capitalistic corporate greed".

Dick Gottlieb
Grey House Publishing


> segmentation is simply the greed of multi-national capitalists
> (on whose taxes higher education in Canada and elsewhere is
> hugely dependent).  But there is another explanation, which is
> based on my own experience as a publisher of over 40 years'
> experience.
>
> Most textbooks have traditionally been developed for and 
> published in the developed world.  Their prices were usually 
> set in direct relationship to the total cost of publication and 
> distribution, including royalties payable to the author(s) and 
> the publisher's overheads.  It was found in the 1950s and 1960s 
> that students in less developed countries were unable to afford 
> these prices.  So publishers either licensed the publications 
> rights to a local publisher that could sell into its local 
> territory at a locally acceptable price, or republished the 
> textbook as a low cost edition for less well-endowed markets, 
> having recovered much of the cost of publication on the 
> original edition.  These were often referred to as 
> "International Student Editions" or something similar.  Their 
> sale was limited to specified countries - that was the point, 
> because their price was related to the marginal cost of 
> republication, rather than the full cost of original 
> publication.  Many of the publishers that I knew - and know - 
> have done this out of wholly altruistic reasons.
>
> It has always been important for restrict the sale of such 
> international student editions to the countries for which they 
> were intended.  To allow importation back into the developed 
> world would undermine the economics of textbook publishing as 
> we know it.
>
> John Cox
>
> Managing Director
> John Cox Associates Ltd
> Rookwood
> Bradden
> TOWCESTER
> Northants
> United Kingdom
> E-mail: John.E.Cox@btinternet.com
> Web: www.johncoxassociates.co.uk