TKAM update: discounted books for schools

[orangerful]

Because you all seemed just as concerned/upset as me about the cancellation of the mass market To Kill a Mockingbird (and apparently we were not alone), just wanted to share that HarperCollins has announced they will sell discounted copies of the trade paperback edition to schools.

Of course, the discounted price is $9/book...which is still pretty damn expensive when you look at public school funding and the number of kids in a class and try to factor in how many copies are probably damaged each year just from general wear and tear. :-\

Wonder if they will discount copies for public libraries still...which, again, is still pretty pricey considering we like to have lots of copies because of schools teaching it, college courses plus normal people wanting to read it.

Comments

[night-owl-9.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. $9/book is still expensive, I must agree. Better than nothing, I guess? I don't know. The whole thing is just bonkers.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

They are still greedy bastards.


Gabrielle

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

$9 for a book sounds pretty steep to me DX

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

I hope they can discount an 'ereader' edition so that school libraries/computers can get it/distribute it. Most high school are require kids to have a laptop or iPad now - and that would be a portable version that would be cheaper...and of course, less wear and tear.

Anyway...I suppose this is better than nothing.

*HUGS*

[meepalicious.livejournal.com]

$9/book is still a lot, especially if you're letting kids annotate and need new copies each year/semester.

Discounting copies just for schools (and maybe public libraries?) misses the point, I think. Mass market paperbacks built the YA market because teens could afford to buy them. (I know it isn't a YA book, technically, but it's widely read by teens.)

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

You don't even wanna know what kids in school do to their books... Older kids are worse, to be quite honest. Between 14-16 year olds? Horrible. Absolutely horrible. :-P

[igrockspock.livejournal.com]

You know, my school never buys trade paperbacks of anything because they get destroyed so easily. In my experience, they last 1-3 years max. We are not a well-funded school district, but we always pay for the permabound edition even though it's a lot more expensive because those things are basically indestructible. My permabound novels have been in my classroom for six or seven years with very little sign of wear and tear. It's actually pretty rare that we even have to buy novels for ourselves because every time you adopt new textbooks, the publisher usually includes 2-3 novel sets as a bonus. Popular classics like TKAM are almost always available that way. So...I definitely appreciate any and all concern for public school funding, but the situation with this particular book may not be as bad as it seems!

[snogged.livejournal.com]

I'm glad HarperCollins is making a different decision, even it is quite expensive.

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

That's good news! Not great as it's not cheap to get a classroom of books at that price but it's better than nothing.

I still wish this felt less money grubbing. It's uncomfortable and I think ultimately will mean that as copies wear out schools will move on to teaching something else and TKAM may become something more for college/university students who buy their own books. If that's the case then many people are going to miss out on having this book introduced to them which I think is a shame.