Everyone may have known this except me, but just in case I wasn't the only
one I will share the info with you.
For a few years we have been buying paper back monographs when they are
offered. THese are the ones you see on the green slips and other places
from OX. U. Press and many other presses. Often the hard back monographs
will sell for lets say $45.00 and the paper back for $25.00. And they are
the same printing. We have been buying the paper backs where available, and
then binding them in library binding or in many cases with a lesser binding.
This stretches our purchasing power of monographs considerably.
Things that puzzled me were that from the same publisher some monographs
would only be available in hard back while others from that publisher were
available in paper back. Also, I could not figure out why there would be a
$15, $20 or even larger difference in the between the hard and paper back
versions since I knew biding costs were not that high from what we
experience in our own library.
Fiinally, a publisher shed some light on the matter. He said that some
books have a practitioner market and a law school classroom market. In
those cases the publisher looks at the entire market for the book and in
effect the practitioner hard bound price subsidizes the paper back which is
aimed for law students. The reason that not all of a company's monographs
are offered in paper back is that many do not have a law student classroom
market.
This makes some sense to me. Maybe it does to you too.
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