Textbooks are expensive to produce; before I go any further let me just say that 30-40% of the price students pay goes to the college bookstore. And for what? The bookstore only has to order the books and pile them on the shelves. It doesn’t pay for shipping, selecting the books, or trying to market them. The bookstore doesn’t even have to pay for books that don’t sell; unsold books can be returned to the publisher.
The bookstore also makes money on used books; it buys only books that instructors will be using the next semester, and again adds the 30% markup. Note that neither the publisher nor the author get any $$ from the sale of used books.
Before blaming authors and publishers for the cost of textbooks, consider the piece of the revenue pie that is allocated to college bookstores. I am not suggesting that bookstores should give up all their textbook profits; bookstores generate funds that would otherwise be taken from taxpayers. Perhaps digital books will change this model, but as of today, many states require some share of online sales to be repatriated to college bookstores, even if those stores have absolutely nothing to do with the sale.
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