Coursepacks Costs

What goes in to the cost to the student of a coursepack? Copyright costs vary widely, and as a result, some coursepacks cost as much as $70.00, while others are under $5.00. If you are concerned about the final cost of your coursepack, consider the following elements we must take into account when determining our final price

• Copyright permissions. Generally copyright costs make up 50-70% of the final price. However, the costs of permissions vary widely title by title. Some publishers charge a flat rate for each permission request, in which case we will divide the cost by the number of copies made. Others charge a certain amount per page, or several dollars per article, in which case the cost will be the same for each book no matter how many students are enrolled. Some works are in the public domain, meaning we will not have to charge for copyright. For information on when works pass into the public domain, see our copyright information page. 
• Filing. The bookstore charges $2.00 per copyright permission request. Multiple selections from the same source (chapters 2 and 5 from Social Psychology, for instance) are considered a single permission request. If a coursepack has ten sources, we would charge $20 that is then divided among the copies made. 
• Master copies. If the bookstore is asked to photocopy the original material for the coursepack, we charge $.05/page plus labor. You are also free to provide the master copies yourself. If you decide to do this, we strongly urge you to read through our guidelines to ensure the pages will feed through the Copy Center's machines, as well as assuring the final product is readable to the student. 
• Production costs. The copy center will provide us with a "per book" cost for copying, coverstock and binding materials. This is built into our retail price. 
• Retail margin and returns. These are built into the final cost also.