"The price of books for our students is just getting higher and higher, combined with the rising cost of tuition, and it's killing these students," said Peter Jason, a college professor. "Remember, students are one of the poorest groups of people in America. Almost half of them have at least one part-time job. In fact, one of my students has three jobs. And she still manages to have high scores and go to school full-time."
Textbook prices are traditionally high. What's more, many college teachers change textbooks year after year; they either upgrade to a new edition or switch to an entirely different textbook. This further hurts students because if an instructor no longer uses a particular textbook, that book has no resale value.
Dr. Jason decided to make reading a little easier and a lot cheaper for his students by writing his own book on public speaking. "Many books have an increased price due to CD-ROMs, lots of color photographs and pictures. I talked to my students, and many of them, like me, prefer to keep things simple! So, a few years ago, I wrote my own textbook. Compared to most other public speaking books, mine is half the number of pages, and one-third the price. That is, $30 instead of $ 90. When I wrote a second edition last year, students only had to buy the 35 new pages. For only $7, they had almost a new book. Now my loose-leaf textbook enjoys great popularity among the students. Maybe in the future more writers and publishers will try it."