Why are textbook publishers so sticky about selling teacher's editions?

Question

I've e-mailed a few textbook publishers inquiring about purchasing the teacher's editions of one of their student textbooks. They all flatly refuse to sell me one because I'm not a teacher. I'm not looking for a deal or anything; they sell for well over $100 and I'm willing to pay it in order to supplement my math studies (self study). Why do these publishers not want to take my money? I just want to buy some math solutions, why is that so hard to do? Is the selling of math answers that big an issue? Are they worried that these math answers somehow might fall into the wrong hands? Are they worried I'm going to start hanging around school yards selling math solutions to failing math students?

Share your thoughts!

Thanks!

Answer 1

The reason you are so frustrated is that you dont understand the model of business they run under. A few things about how they run their business:

They are looking for adoptions not individual sales. They invest in a regional sales force that goes to districts to sell their books. Often they sell sets in the range of half a million books at a time. To them, the sale of one book is not worth the manpower to even package it.( they are not set up to do it...seems wierd but if you are packaging books to dropship by the tens of thousands...there are no single books on a shelf to have someone go get yours)

When I as a teacher request a single book, I am referred to one of their sales team who sends me a promotional copy - *I* can't even buy one. If I miss the adoption and its a few years later - they dont even have the edition I need.

Often their teachers editions do not come singly. They package their books as "system solutions". When I did get my teachers edition for the last adoption, it came as a massive box with hundreds of things in it - the Teachers edition, software, overhead projector items, solution books, translation editions .. tons of other things.

Finally, If it was known that a textbook company sells to individuals, there would be another type of problem for that company. We don.t have to buy from that compnay - there are others we could adopt in its place. In fact, the textbook industry is highly competitive. Last year in our science adoption, my school was "courted" by two rival companies. You should have seen the excess.... free everything..lunches, technology, breakfasts, notes and letters and gifts in our boxes... Once we bought we never saw them again of course...

The point is - there are some who would easily avoid that company if the teachers editions were to be made available to you. It is in their financial interest to keep the teachers editions for those who really need them.

In summary - They are not interested in a hundred bucks when they are set up to sell millions.

So the above is the reasons why they do it - the fairness of it all is left to you to decide.  

Answer 2

They think you're trying to buy the solutions manual so that you don't have to do any work in the class.  If it got out that they were selling the solutions as freely as the book, no professors would bother buying from them - there are plenty of other options that will make it harder to cheat.

Most math books have the answers to half the problems in the back anyway, and worked examples.  That should be enough - most teachers don't need the solution manual.