Undercutting the System

It is a widely accepted fact that college textbooks are absurdly overpriced. This semester I mangaged to avoid most the full cost of about $200 for the textbooks for my two classes by checking two of them out from the library and using a $60 gift credit at Powells to buy the third. The average textbook these days runs from $100-$150 and typically contains an absurd amount of useless fluff: unimportant pictures, figures, and blank margins. I was looking at my textbooks for next semester only to learn that Griffith's Introduction to Electrodynamics and Krugman's International Economics are each about $120. The paradigm of overpriced textbooks is becoming so entrenched that the average prices in the used textbook market are rarely more than 30% less than new, as thrifty students try to minimize their losses. Even so, $80 for a textbook is not much of an improvement.

I was pondering this problem and googling somethings when I came across a brilliant notion. Unlike in America, students in other countries simply do not have the means to pay $100+ for each book they need. So publishers print softcover "international editions" of many of their textbooks in foreign countries to be sold there. The international editions are typically in black and white only and printed on lower quality paper, but that's not particularly important unless the student wants to keep one of their texts as a reference book. The cost is significantly less. I'm not sure what they cost directly from the publisher, but third parties now buy them in bulk and resell them internationally on eBay. For example, Griffith's $115 text is sold for $7 plus $15 shipping and handling. It seems like a scam, but the feedback ratings are overwhelmingly positive. Granted, there is a slight (3-4%) chance that you will get a book with missing pages or chapters, but that's why you only pay $22 instead of $114. It's truly brilliant.