A Note on the Pricing of After the Fact
In 1982, After the Fact was issued in its first edition as a trade book, and did very well—much to the surprise of Alfred A. Knopf's trade division, which had declined to take the book when we first proposed it. Instead, it was signed by Knopf's college group; and only then did trade agree to publish an edition. The identical college version, however, was more widely adopted than the trade book; and its sales there led to a long-running success. Those who try now to buy a copy of the book's current sixth edition at Amazon or other trade outlets will be astonished to find it selling for as much as $145 the copy. This exorbitant sum, I'm sorry to say, is due to the distortions of the textbook market. Buyers throw up their hands in dismay, not without reason. Textbook prices across the board have come in for sharp criticism.
My own experience (having co-authored a number of larger survey texts) leads me to believe that such high prices are a result of multiple factors, many beyond the control of the publisher. Substantial survey texts, in subjects ranging from American history to sociology and organic chemistry, are complex productions, which in today's digital world include a host of "free" ancillaries used in courses, including test banks, study guides, grade management software, and elaborate websites—the cost of which must be absorbed in the price of the book. In addition, the used book market buys up old texts for a pittance and resells them at a steep markup (though still cheaper than new books), thus depriving authors and publishers of sales. Instead, the income goes to those who contributed nothing to the upfront time (3-5 years in my experience) to write or to the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to publish the book in the first place. The digital revolution is roiling publishing models and in the end may help keep a lid on prices, but nirvana has not yet arrived.
At the same time, After the Fact is not a textbook of this sort. It is a single-color book, not a lavish full-color survey. And while it has developed an auxiliary Web program and instructors' manual, those costs have been relatively minor. My co-author Mark Lytle and I see no compelling reason why the book should be priced so steeply. We are looking to see if our publisher would be willing to rethink its marketing model, and issue the book at a lower price similar to what it might sell for as a trade paperback. Certainly the book's original trade edition was well received by the general public.
Meanwhile, if you're interested in After the Fact, I recommend looking for used copies, especially in editions less recent than the sixth. (Caution: there are single-volume editions of the book, but it has also been split into a two-volume edition, for courses extending over two separate semesters.) Those used book prices are much more reasonable. We have added new topics and chapters over the years to more recent editions, but the earlier volumes do give a reasonable sense of the kind of detective work historians engage in as they go about reconstructing the past.
In 1982, After the Fact was issued in its first edition as a trade book, and did very well—much to the surprise of Alfred A. Knopf's trade division, which had declined to take the book when we first proposed it. Instead, it was signed by Knopf's college group; and only then did trade agree to publish an edition. The identical college version, however, was more widely adopted than the trade book; and its sales there led to a long-running success. Those who try now to buy a copy of the book's current sixth edition at Amazon or other trade outlets will be astonished to find it selling for as much as $145 the copy. This exorbitant sum, I'm sorry to say, is due to the distortions of the textbook market. Buyers throw up their hands in dismay, not without reason. Textbook prices across the board have come in for sharp criticism.
My own experience (having co-authored a number of larger survey texts) leads me to believe that such high prices are a result of multiple factors, many beyond the control of the publisher. Substantial survey texts, in subjects ranging from American history to sociology and organic chemistry, are complex productions, which in today's digital world include a host of "free" ancillaries used in courses, including test banks, study guides, grade management software, and elaborate websites—the cost of which must be absorbed in the price of the book. In addition, the used book market buys up old texts for a pittance and resells them at a steep markup (though still cheaper than new books), thus depriving authors and publishers of sales. Instead, the income goes to those who contributed nothing to the upfront time (3-5 years in my experience) to write or to the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to publish the book in the first place. The digital revolution is roiling publishing models and in the end may help keep a lid on prices, but nirvana has not yet arrived.
At the same time, After the Fact is not a textbook of this sort. It is a single-color book, not a lavish full-color survey. And while it has developed an auxiliary Web program and instructors' manual, those costs have been relatively minor. My co-author Mark Lytle and I see no compelling reason why the book should be priced so steeply. We are looking to see if our publisher would be willing to rethink its marketing model, and issue the book at a lower price similar to what it might sell for as a trade paperback. Certainly the book's original trade edition was well received by the general public.
Meanwhile, if you're interested in After the Fact, I recommend looking for used copies, especially in editions less recent than the sixth. (Caution: there are single-volume editions of the book, but it has also been split into a two-volume edition, for courses extending over two separate semesters.) Those used book prices are much more reasonable. We have added new topics and chapters over the years to more recent editions, but the earlier volumes do give a reasonable sense of the kind of detective work historians engage in as they go about reconstructing the past.