4 ms·

I'm curious about the incentive that leads to this. If you're going to print and sell counterfeit textbooks, why not use the actual content? Surely nearly every

I'm curious about the incentive that leads to this. If you're going to print and sell counterfeit textbooks, why not use the actual content? Surely nearly every copy with a random other book will be returned. Is it possible that they meant to include the right content, but they counterfeit lots of books and have low quality control? My best guess is that they can easily grab a copy of a book's cover online, but actually acquiring and scanning a copy of each book is cost prohibitive, so they just sell entirely fake ones and hope that they get at least some money out of it.

arkades 6y ago
I got a counterfeit book of knots. And I kept it. As far as I can tell, someone printed and hardbound a PDF of the actual book, which is otherwise I guess out of print. It's about the best I could hope to get under the circumstances. So ... there we are.
- LaserPineapple 6y ago
  What book?
  - arkades 6y ago
    The Ashley Book of Knots.
    - LgWoodenBadger 6y ago
      I bought (and returned) a legit copy of that book. At least in the sense that it wasn't a printed pdf. Weird.
    - esaym 6y ago
      https://archive.org/details/TheAshleyBookOfKnots/page/n637/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/TheAshleyBookOfKnots/page/n637/m... nearly 700 pages of knots, nice!
rootusrootus 6y ago
I can't imagine there's a lot of margin in counterfeit textbooks. The publishers themselves already offer lower quality copies with the same content. They just restrict it to the Indian subcontinent, and "used, excellent condition" copies start showing up quickly on Amazon. I have one right in front of me. Paper quality is definitely lower, printing quality much lower, but the content is identical and it cost me 25% of what the same book runs when produced for the US.
- perpetualpatzer 6y ago
  There is actually a LOT of margin in counterfeiting textbooks. Even in the US a textbook costs ~$10 to manufacture. The reason prices are so high is that there's a high fixed cost up front to write/edit/typeset/design/market the book, and a small, capped number of readers over which you can hope to amortize those costs. If publishers need to sell for $200 to break even, you can sell your counterfeit copy as "used" for $50-100/u, and get a 4-900% gross margin because you don't have to waste money on things like developing or marketing the content or paying royalties.
jbay808 6y ago
I was also very confused. If you're going to sell a fake book, why not just fill it with blank pages? Why go to the extra effort? Did they really think I wasn't going to notice when I opened it and it was full of information about hamsters? Were they hoping I'd just put it on my bookshelf and never actually read it? We concluded that they probably run some kind of big automated print-on-demand counterfeiting operation, and have a database of textbook PDFs from several publishers. They probably had the wrong entry in their database for this title, and linked it up with the wrong contents. Perhaps next time you order a small-animal veterinary handbook from Amazon, you'll find it full of block diagrams and transfer functions. I imagine that if they had printed the correct PDF, I never would have noticed. The book was printed on high-quality paper and well bound. For what it's worth, this wasn't a cheap purchase.
- ThePowerOfFuet 6y ago
  Amazon also prints many books on demand; could it simply have been a fuck-up at the printing facility, swapping covers for two print jobs?
- kube-system 6y ago
  I'm guessing it's because they didn't manufacture the book at all -- they probably took a used book that was worth next to nothing and put a new cover on it, hoping that some people wouldn't open it until their return window closed?
wincy 6y ago
Weird, you could print off Library Genesis and get better results than that.

arkades 6y ago

I got a counterfeit book of knots. And I kept it. As far as I can tell, someone printed and hardbound a PDF of the actual book, which is otherwise I guess out of print. It's about the best I could hope to get under the circumstances. So ... there we are.

LaserPineapple 6y ago
What book?
- arkades 6y ago
  The Ashley Book of Knots.
  - LgWoodenBadger 6y ago
    I bought (and returned) a legit copy of that book. At least in the sense that it wasn't a printed pdf. Weird.
  - esaym 6y ago
    https://archive.org/details/TheAshleyBookOfKnots/page/n637/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/TheAshleyBookOfKnots/page/n637/m... nearly 700 pages of knots, nice!

rootusrootus 6y ago

I can't imagine there's a lot of margin in counterfeit textbooks. The publishers themselves already offer lower quality copies with the same content. They just restrict it to the Indian subcontinent, and "used, excellent condition" copies start showing up quickly on Amazon. I have one right in front of me. Paper quality is definitely lower, printing quality much lower, but the content is identical and it cost me 25% of what the same book runs when produced for the US.

perpetualpatzer 6y ago
There is actually a LOT of margin in counterfeiting textbooks. Even in the US a textbook costs ~$10 to manufacture. The reason prices are so high is that there's a high fixed cost up front to write/edit/typeset/design/market the book, and a small, capped number of readers over which you can hope to amortize those costs. If publishers need to sell for $200 to break even, you can sell your counterfeit copy as "used" for $50-100/u, and get a 4-900% gross margin because you don't have to waste money on things like developing or marketing the content or paying royalties.

jbay808 6y ago

I was also very confused. If you're going to sell a fake book, why not just fill it with blank pages? Why go to the extra effort? Did they really think I wasn't going to notice when I opened it and it was full of information about hamsters? Were they hoping I'd just put it on my bookshelf and never actually read it? We concluded that they probably run some kind of big automated print-on-demand counterfeiting operation, and have a database of textbook PDFs from several publishers. They probably had the wrong entry in their database for this title, and linked it up with the wrong contents. Perhaps next time you order a small-animal veterinary handbook from Amazon, you'll find it full of block diagrams and transfer functions. I imagine that if they had printed the correct PDF, I never would have noticed. The book was printed on high-quality paper and well bound. For what it's worth, this wasn't a cheap purchase.

ThePowerOfFuet 6y ago
Amazon also prints many books on demand; could it simply have been a fuck-up at the printing facility, swapping covers for two print jobs?
kube-system 6y ago
I'm guessing it's because they didn't manufacture the book at all -- they probably took a used book that was worth next to nothing and put a new cover on it, hoping that some people wouldn't open it until their return window closed?

wincy 6y ago

Weird, you could print off Library Genesis and get better results than that.