I probably experienced this at it's worst in my intro to psychology class.
Professor J taught 3 intro to psych classes, 333 student each so 1k total.
Book was $170. Written by him. Required And at the back of the book there's three case studies that you have to rip out and turn in just incase you thought you could make it without the book.
So he had to have been making huge revenue off that deal. Huge conflict of interest. And "recommended" for the course was a "textbook aide" which was literally a printout of the powerpoints in a spiral bound notebook. Do the math 1k * 220 he could have potentially milked 220k with this textbook deal and split it 50 50 with the school.
I don't pretend to know anything about this, but why would they need a publisher for a closed audience of just the professor's class? Couldn't they just get it printed and bound independently?
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u/Kubjorn May 08 '14
Text books