Thursday, August 20: Femme Fatale
HOURLY RATES?
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
Chegg rents books for 60 days, by the quarter or semester. When I stumbled upon this website, my interest was piqued. At first, I assumed these were text books only, but in a quick search I found that The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century could be rented for $8.72 for 60 days. Of course, buying the book on Amazon ranges somewhere from $.53 for used up to $28 for new. Wouldn’t any rented book most likely be considered “used”? So are those from the library and they are free — although not usually loaned out for such a long period of time. Personally, I am one of those people who like to own and keep my books, and I’m more apt to buy locally whenever possible.
The main thing is the Chegg people were thinking outside the box. It’s the American way to find a solution to a problem and then make money on it. For years I’ve been aghast at the price tag colleges and universities place on required textbooks. Sure, you can sometimes sell them back to the college, but at a terribly reduced rate. It makes more sense to sell to another student who will be able to purchase the same book at a serious discount from you than to the campus bookstore which makes more than a healthy profit all the way around. To me, this is more gouging than anything else.
Ah, to have the sales figures on one of my mystery writers’ books as those textbooks. (And do the authors receive royalties on those or is it a method of achieving tenure?) Mystery writers do study other mystery writers’ books to see how they did it so well. Cultivating exactly where the clues were planted and why the resolution appeared where it did. So, for me, mysteries are my textbooks as well as my treasures.
I’m currently reading a collection of short stories just to do that: see what works and what doesn’t. This is an older collection and most of the stories hold up well. Some do not. I am studying those just as much as those that withstood the test of time. Knowing the problems helps one find the solution.
Many of today’s stories are written in another time period, so it isn’t that that keeps a story from holding up. Sometimes it’s the language. Not the slang terms, but the choice of phrasing. Reading Mickey Spillane today is as intriguing as it must have been to those who read his novels hot off the presses.
“Some days hang over Manhattan like a huge pair of unseen pincers, slowly squeezing the city until you can hardly breathe.” – Mickey Spillane, The Killing Man
That line was written over two decades ago, yet the sentence still expresses an image and feeling relevant today.
Pop music is the same. Sure the lyrics, singer, and melody are important. But it’s the pacing, the beauty of the music that stays with us, making us hum along. How many of us can remember certain feelings when we hear an old song? Is there one that makes us smile? Remember a first love or the best summer of your life? There’s a tune roaming around those memories, I’ll bet.
When I first saw “Amadeus,” I remember thinking how that time period’s operas were like today’s Broadway. Operas were musicals for the masses. Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn resonant today because they captured the feeling of society. Nick Carter, Mike Hammer, and James Bond adventures were what the public wanted and needed to help us escape and give us a breather while the country found its way out of its own perils.
Today we’re still involved in wars and rumors of war. We’re being hit hard in the pocketbook, yet still need to find ways to keep from dwelling on the negatives. I know few things more positive than reading or reading to someone else. We need to read adventures, humor, and mysteries. And yes, we need to study to make ourselves a stronger nation.
If it takes a rental to get me there, sign me up.
I am all for capitalism and creativity. Good for Chegg for being so clever. If students sell their used books on Ebay or Craig’s list for reduced rates, and places like Chegg do well, maybe college bookstores will take the hint and overall prices will lower. Nothing like competition to make a nation great!
To me the idea of renting a book is as perverse as renting a woman, of course that is the oldest profession so maybe these Chegg people are on to something.
There’s nothing quite like a brand new book. As an author, I worry about what will happen if everyone stops buying new books and only rents or buys used. Writers should be paid for their work. We have bills to pay! Still, I agree that the cost of books has become outrageous — much like the cost of everything else. Not sure what the answer is to this problem…
Like Lissa, I am all for people making money and KEEPING their money and investing or reinvesting as they see fit, however, that doesn’t mean I have to “buy” into it.
I don’t do online books and I wouldn’t rent one because I want it to be, as my daughter still says “mine!!”–I want to have it in my collection to re-read, etc.
I guess if it comes down to a book or a week or so of diet coke, I’ll have withdrawal so I can have the book I desire.
After visiting this week with my soon to be daughter-in-law, who is Turkish, I find we Americans are such a baby country. While they are very rich in tradition, we have a motley crew of such. However, in many ways, we are so far ahead, it is overwhelming to her.
I’ll take the U. S. and I’m proud of it where some apologize.
I applaud the ability to rent-a-book. I just wanna own mine.
Great and provacative article, Deborah.
The advent of the public library is historically recent. Formerly, most libraries belonged either to institutions (still plenty of those around) or to wealthy individuals. The idea of a lending library was conceived originally as a business, where the books were lent out for a penny or tuppence a day (mind you, when pence were silver, not copper, and farthings and halfpennies were still in circulation). They were much more common than bookstores in the 18th century — books were usually purchased by subscription (to underwrite the cost of producing them), or directly from the printers’ overstock, if any. And that didn’t include the binding.
These rental libraries effectively improved literacy because very few people could afford to buy books. (The idea of the inexpensive disposable book is also relatively new.) Chegg is simply reviving a very old idea and tarting it up with new technology.
Textbooks are expensive to buy because they are expensive to produce and usually have very limited printings. For a host of technical subjects, textbooks rapidly become obsolete, and so have a limited lifespan, as it were — and competition is as fierce as in any other print market, so multiple editions don’t guarantee longevity. The idea that publishers are raking in cash hand over fist in the textbook market is laughable.
When I was in college, I always opted for used textbooks over new ones if they were available, especially if the previous owners had made notes in the margins. (Cf. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.) Not only were they cheaper, they were more valuable.
Notations in the margins are only as good as the student. Sometimes these are the only notes a lazy student would make. I’m a bit leery of notes in a margin unless I know who wrote them.
Notations in the margins are only as good as the student.
I agree — and also only as good as the professor. In my experience, most margin notes weren’t the original sentiments of the student who wrote them, but a reflection of what the professor emphasized as important to the class. Notes in the margin can just as easily be ignored, but usually when somebody memorializes something, there’s a compelling reason.
I haven’t been to a college class in a long, long time, though, not since I got my certificate in computer science from UCLA Extension in the early 90s. I have no idea what the current environment is like, although I know some professors who think that the quality of students has precipitously declined in the last few decades.
I like Chegg’s idea. I think about going to the library and finding something interest and cheap to read, but it is out of the way. Maybe I am embracing the laziness that is so prevalent in society, but after 10 hours, I am tired.
I can get the book I want from Chegg. I don’t have to go back day after day hoping to see if the book I want to read has been returned or been held out way past the return date. Chegg is the Netflix of the literary world. I don’t deal with crowds and they have what I want when I want it. At least I hope so. 60 days to read a book. Should be enough time even for a procrastinator.
If I like the book, I can buy a used copy from EBay or Amazon. I know new sales helps the authors out, but the prices can be high. I know this is cause people are buying more used books which drive up the new prices to help offset the loss, but I am not sure if I really feel like the person who wants to make up the difference. Plus, the used book should be more worn, which might impress those superficial people that prize literacy and intelligence. ;-p
Great post Deborah
When I was a kid back in the dark ages (the 1930s) there were numerous private lending libraries. Some seemed to have a wider selection of fiction than all but the largest public libraries. From the standpoint of writers it would be best if everyone bought books but many people can’t afford it. I imagine that in some of the lending libraries the copy of some books was the only one in town. In my opinion both the private and public libraries gave people an opportunity to become familiar with many writers and in the future might buy the books of those they liked.