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Need I really say more?


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528 paged and hardbound that's only 7.1111111 cents a page!

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320 pages and hardbound. A steal at only 5.54 cents a page! Hurry these are going to go fast!


Hangs head in shame and returns to school...

Wait... you actually use your textbooks?

Platuan4th wrote:

I got a $50 off coupon on the 8th ed fantasy rulebook, and I got the 40k rulebook in AoBR when it was still $45 instead of $100. I also haven't bought a textbook in 5 semesters.

Yeah but you can rent textbooks...

GW army books/codices become rent after a short period.
They do it all by themselves too.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:GW army books/codices become rent after a short period.
They do it all by themselves too.

Amen

I have no idea what books you are buying for college that is brand new with full color and bounded.

My Accounting book which is the most like the rulebook cost $225, so I'm happy with GW book prices. Sh**, my unbound business statistics book was $125.. Did i mention it was unbound, had to buy a damn 3" binder for it.

$550 for books this semester for me bought used at amazon. I wish my college books cost under $100 each new.

Liquidice281 wrote:I have no idea what books you are buying for college that is brand new with full color and bounded.

My Accounting book which is the most like the rulebook cost $225, so I'm happy with GW book prices. Sh**, my unbound business statistics book was $125.. Did i mention it was unbound, had to buy a damn 3" binder for it.

$550 for books this semester for me bought used at amazon. I wish my college books cost under $100 each new.

Seriously. What classes is the OP taking where all his books cost less than $70 each? Also I've never been forced to spend $180 on a 40k rulebook we barely used because our professor had an editing credit on it.

If you're going to complain about GW at least stick to the well trod paths of marines, fanbois, and rules quality. Then you know you'll get plenty of support here.

Not to mention the 60%-80% buy back rate for textbooks.

There is always something that will cost more.

Flame it or spin it anyway you want.

GW claims their prices are high because they are the best...

Truth is their casting is superior than most...but...then again....(most) everything is plastic these days. This appeals to some I suppose but I guess I'm just old school.

Support has fallen far from grace.

New flavor has been lacking for several years.

Heck you don't even get something for free anymore when you subscribe to White Dwarf anymore. You get the "privilege" to pay $15 for it!

Their sculping has for all accounts just no spark to make them exciting. Conversions and green-stuff cover so much of models these days it's no wonder people are sculpting their own now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
sparking the fires lads

sparking the fires.

It pains me to see how far from grace GW products / support / general "geek" appeal etc. etc.

plastictrees wrote:

Seriously. What classes is the OP taking where all his books cost less than $70 each? Also I've never been forced to spend $180 on a 40k rulebook we barely used because our professor had an editing credit on it.

If you're going to complain about GW at least stick to the well trod paths of marines, fanbois, and rules quality. Then you know you'll get plenty of support here.

As a fine-arts major, the majority of my textbooks are in the $50-$100 range, and tend to be full colour, considering the material involved. And my University's buyback rates are fairly low, or so I hear.

My education texts were pretty cheap, only like $50. Less because I rented them. I can understand having a $70 textbook.

I guess the courses differ pretty drastically, I just called my sister and she says her Human Movements text is A LOT more.

Just last week I spent a good $250 on textbooks, and that's only for 3 of my 5 classes. Although unlike last year's it looks like I might actually use one or two of these. The only textbook I really used from last year was a graphic design book that I never even opened during classes. I ended up using it as reference material when I worked at Nexen over the summer, of all things.

During some semesters on my way to getting an Engineering Degree I spent more then $500 on 4 text books. The more technical the degree the more pricey the books.

GW's books are really nice, and I for one like hard bound rule books, they tend to hold together much longer then softcovers.

I used to have to spend $100 - $150 per book, and that was over 15 years ago. I would be lucky to get $20 back per book. Yes, I could easily spend $400 per semester.

Thank god that Pell grants covered it. If we only had Amazon.com back then...

ZF-

Of course most of these books only cost a fraction of their RRP to print. The most recent Forgeworld book is £45, but probably only cost £5 to print especially as they print it abroad, although I suppose it is niche interest even by GW standards which means a low print run and sales. WD on the other hand probably costs 50p to print. Technical books probably have costs on the research and writing that goes into them but again print costs are quite low in contrast to the retail price. Of course print runs get cheaper by the unit the bigger they are so hardback bestsellers that are printed in the millions cost next to nothing while academic texts cost more. Hardbacks cost little more than paperbacks, the bulk of costs are in the layout, paper quality and other odds and ends and probably cost more to transport being slightly bulkier, but the RRP of a hardback is still commonly double that of a paperback.

The RRP of a book has very little to do with production cost, it's largely to do with desirability and exclusivity. This varies between genres and subjects. And of course there is a chain of other people involved who need their cut; authors, printers, publisher, wholesaler, distributor, retailer, etc.

You should compare like for like; what are other gaming book priced at? D&D is probably the only other big game I can think of that is very popular and their books are not greatly different in price. Their paperbacks are sort of similar in price, the Hardbacks are £20+. Most other manufacturers are smaller than GW so an A4 softback book would be £12-15. GW codexes are currently £18, so GW might be a bit on the pricey side but that's no great surprise. White Dwarf is £4.50 but an issue of Nature Journal is £8 or something, but it's not fair to compare the two, the costs and distribution is totally different. Other wargames magazines like Wargames Illustrated are also about £4, some modelling magazines are cheaper like Finescale Modeller which is about £3 I think, and both of those have better real content than WD so GW lose again on value for money rather than absolute value.

I think that's spot on Howard

A lot of academic books will have smaller publication runs than GW books.
Especially the more specialised subjects. The excuse that GW charges more because itis a niche product pails into insignificance.

TBH I thought the 8th ed not too bad a price all things considered.
On the other hand the army books/codices pricing is pretty disgraceful.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:A lot of academic books will have smaller publication runs than GW books.

Certainly, some limited editions and special interest books (not always academic either) are printed in a matter of hundreds which is why many end up in libraries.

I did Biomedical Engineering - I only bought 1 text book (£45) and hardly used it. And it was probably the most useful text book for the course as well (general anatomy, physiology and so on) and was very easy to access.

You can go a long way with research on the internet (especially if you have Athens login or similar to get all the new papers being published), from the handouts or in the library.

Thinking back on it I probably would have bought a book on some of the specialised areas of mechanical engineering, as I found some of those quite challanging. The problem is that a lot of text books are written in a way that seems to ensure you can never get into them

Engineering books were almost always $100, and that was 14 years ago.

Damn, I'm old.

I've found that the best rule of thumb is to NOT buy any texts for the first month unless they are design or technical manuals containing tables needed to do the coursework. Depending on how the professors run the class, this period will tell you which books are MUST buy. The worst kicker was when we had to fork out a pile of money for the Steel Design Manuals with full knowledge that a new edition would be coming out within 6 months. Our prof admitted that the timing couldn't be more terrible but we couldn't start the course without a manual... Our teaching assistant did the best that he could by providing partial photocopy updates under the table so we wouldn't be totally SOL the next semester. What a kick in the pants.

I find that due to edition changes, a lot of books don't fall into the buyback category well, although items like design manuals you will never want to sell back anyways.

Speaing of D&D, there's an unsubstantiated theory that the core books are produced at minimal profit margin as they're the books everyone needs to get into the game. They're also printed in the most quantity, as everyone needs a Player's Handbook for D&D, or at least access to one.

This may be net.lore, however... I don't have access to WotC's financials.

I think this is where Call of Cthulhu and some other RPGs have always had trouble, as they are built such that only the GM needs a rulebook and certainly on the GM needs an adventure book, so sales tend to be smaller even if the game is popular.

We had a fun discussion about textbook pricing years ago in a Print Estimating course (I.E. a course on how to estimate the production cost of a printed piece, like a textbook.) The instructor was a great professor and was willing to explain a few things even though he was 'in on it' (He was writing his own textbook, which would likely be required for some courses of his once published).

Basically, textbooks do have a lot of 'fingers' in them, and are very short runs. Probably short compared even to game books. Lots of heavy editing and fact checking, institutions may want a cut, lots of contributors. etc.

Plus the professors gotta eat!

Howard A Treesong wrote:Of course most of these books only cost a fraction of their RRP to print. The most recent Forgeworld book is £45, but probably only cost £5 to print especially as they print it abroad, although I suppose it is niche interest even by GW standards which means a low print run and sales. WD on the other hand probably costs 50p to print. Technical books probably have costs on the research and writing that goes into them but again print costs are quite low in contrast to the retail price. Of course print runs get cheaper by the unit the bigger they are so hardback bestsellers that are printed in the millions cost next to nothing while academic texts cost more. Hardbacks cost little more than paperbacks, the bulk of costs are in the layout, paper quality and other odds and ends and probably cost more to transport being slightly bulkier, but the RRP of a hardback is still commonly double that of a paperback.

The RRP of a book has very little to do with production cost, it's largely to do with desirability and exclusivity.

Your also forgetting how much it has to do with what's actually in the book. They did actually have to pay people to write, photograph, paint, draw etc. that stuff ya know. That is always the bulk of the cost with anybook, the stuff inside it.

whatwhat wrote:

Your also forgetting how much it has to do with what's actually in the book. They did actually have to pay people to write, photograph, paint, draw etc. that stuff ya know. That is always the bulk of the cost with anybook, the stuff inside it.

Ridiculous. Art and writing don't cost anything. The only production cost is literally the value of the paper, charging us anything more than that is highway robbery.

I love how we get these fiery revolutionaries revealing the "truth" about GW every few months to us poor sheep. Get over yourself OP, you're not saying anything new or interesting.
If you don't like the games they produce, don't play them, if you don't like the prices they charge, don't pay them...or, you know, get a decent job and suddenly a $60 book every four years isn't really a big deal.
Nobody wants to hear your shocking revalations.

keezus wrote:I've found that the best rule of thumb is to NOT buy any texts for the first month unless they are design or technical manuals containing tables needed to do the coursework. Depending on how the professors run the class, this period will tell you which books are MUST buy. .

Good advice.

I did Fine Art and a Masters in Landscape Design.
The former course recommended books for Art History were not expensive, but otherwise spent loads on books because of genuine interest.
Pretty much the same for the latter. There are some seriously sexy books out there I still lust after.

Most of the books I bought during studies were self motivated purchases and I still cherish them. Even if they are a tad neglected these days.

The worst kicker was when we had to fork out a pile of money for the Steel Design Manuals with full knowledge that a new edition would be coming out within 6 months. Our prof admitted that the timing couldn't be more terrible but we couldn't start the course without a manual... What a kick in the pants.

I find that due to edition changes, a lot of books don't fall into the buyback category well,

Hmmm
That sounds sorta familiar...

whatwhat wrote:Your also forgetting how much it has to do with what's actually in the book. They did actually have to pay people to write, photograph, paint, draw etc. that stuff ya know. That is always the bulk of the cost with anybook, the stuff inside it.

I haven't forgotten them but I have no idea of GWs set up. These people have a tangential cost to the book which is hard to calculate. GW studio staff for instance paint and photograph stuff but most are on a fairly low fixed yearly wage. I don't know about cover art, that might be done on individual contracts, I can't say. But on their fixed wage they will contribute to many books and projects across the year, making their financial input fairly small in the overall scheme of things. I did mention authors - I imagine they are the only ones who get royalties but again I don't know how GW contracts work. Authors of Black Library novels surely get royalties, studio staff working on Codexes is hard to say. With a BL novel they will have paid an author a fixed wage which won't be huge, with codexes it's hard to know if they pay authors specifically or if it's fixed term studio staff churning out the material. Aside from a fixed payment even mainstream authors get little more than a token amount from actual book sales, a brand new book selling for £20 probably nets them a penny or something insignificant. You can only make serious money if you have a particularly generous contract or you sell in colossal volumes like the JK Rowlings of the world, and even she has made the bulk of her money through merchandise/films.

Either way the financial costs of filling a book are low, all the retail cost of a book comes from the markup accrued by a distributor and retailer (who take on a fair burden of risk when buying stock), only a fraction of the RRP goes back to the publisher and they cover all their costs with that and hopefully make get a profit. That's why a book costs about £1 to make and £10 to sell, authors are the bottom of the pile.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:

Keezus wrote: The worst kicker was when we had to fork out a pile of money for the Steel Design Manuals with full knowledge that a new edition would be coming out within 6 months. Our prof admitted that the timing couldn't be more terrible but we couldn't start the course without a manual... What a kick in the pants.

I find that due to edition changes, a lot of books don't fall into the buyback category well,

Hmmm
That sounds sorta familiar...

Actually, to be fair, the manual was the steel code book and had all the allowable tolerances, reference tables for beam sizing and safety factors for calculations (as such, was a required aid in the course) These don't change much, but it doesn't stop them from issuing new editions every 3-5 years due to innovations or changes to regulation. My outdated 2000 code is ok for reference, but worthless for design work now. At least my concrete code book was good a bit longer (also expensive and out of date). My rebar manual will never go out of date!

plastictrees

If you don't like the games they produce, don't play them, if you don't like the prices they charge, don't pay them...or, you know, get a decent job and suddenly a $60 book every four years isn't really a big deal.

Nobody wants to hear your shocking revalations.

I don't play them...anymore. Also, lets not take personal shots that's just below the belt and you are drawing assumptions. For the record I have a "decent job".

Apparently someone wants to hear and talk about these shocking revaluations as even your self read the posting and felt a need to post your thoughts. Thanks!