Elsevier's Morgan Kaufmann Unveils New Global Pricing Strategy to Make Textbooks More Affordable

Business Wire, April 26, 2004

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2004

Leading Computer Science Publisher Adopts New Pricing/Packaging Model

to Promote Fair Textbook Pricing in International Markets

Morgan Kaufmann, an imprint of Elsevier, and one of the world's leading publishers of computer science and engineering books, today announced that it has adopted a global pricing and packaging strategy for the third edition of Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface. This new edition of Computer Organization and Design, which is the publisher's most popular title and will be used by more than 150,000 students, is scheduled for release in August and will be sold in a single worldwide edition for $64.95 U.S. This global pricing and packaging strategy marks a departure from the industry practice of multi-market pricing and is designed to discourage reimporting and used textbook sales.

"More than half of computer organization classes have standardized on Patterson and Hennessy's book, so we are sending a strong message to the market with this new global pricing and packaging strategy for Computer Organization and Design," said Denise Penrose, senior editor for Morgan Kaufmann. "Maintaining tiered pricing strategies for different markets ultimately hurts everyone -- students, publishers and authors. By offering fair pricing on a worldwide basis, we can increase sales of new books and make updated texts available at more affordable prices."

With the release of Computer Organization and Design, Third Edition, co-authored by John Hennessy (president of Stanford University) and David Patterson (Pardee chair of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley), Morgan Kaufmann will publish one edition for all major markets with a suggested list price of $64.95. This new global pricing strategy runs counter to the longstanding practice in textbook publishing, which adopts one price for the domestic market and different prices for International Student Editions sold in overseas markets. For the third edition, the price of the book in foreign markets will reflect the exchange rate value of $64.95 U.S., which is about 25 percent less than the $84.95 price for the second edition. The objective of this strategy is to eliminate the motivation to re-import lower-priced International Student Editions,

In order to reduce the price of the book, the publisher designed a much shorter book with a paperback binding. A significant portion of the text was transferred to a CD-ROM that is included with the book, thus reducing the page count and associated production and manufacturing costs. The objective of reducing the list price is not only to make the book more affordable but also to reduce the incentive to buy used books.

While used books appear to be a bargain for students, they actually contribute to the increasing prices of new editions, since fewer and fewer sales of new books means publishers must raise prices to underwrite the cost of creating a new edition. Morgan Kaufmann believes it can address this issue in a fundamentally new way; by designing a book package that students recognize as valuable and fairly priced, sales of new books will increase, allowing the company to publish affordable new editions more frequently -- which is essential for such a fast changing field.

"We are delighted to be working with a progressive publishing house like Morgan Kaufmann," said Professor Patterson. "In dynamic fields such as computer engineering, keeping instructional material current with the technology is an ongoing challenge. This new global pricing and packaging model makes it possible to update texts with the latest information while reducing the cost for students. Everyone wins with this new global pricing and packaging strategy."

About Morgan Kaufmann and Elsevier

Morgan Kaufmann is an imprint of Elsevier's Science and Technology Books. Morgan Kaufmann publishes some of the finest technical information resources for computer science and engineering professionals and students. Founded in 1984, Morgan Kaufmann publishes information in book and digital form in such areas as databases, computer networking, computer systems, computer architecture and design, human computer interaction, computer graphics, multimedia information and systems, artificial intelligence, and software engineering. For more information, visit www.mkp.com.

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. Working in partnership with the global science and health communities, the company publishes more than 1,800 journals and 2,200 new books per year, in addition to offering a suite of innovative electronic products, online reference works and subject specific portals. Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, a world-leading publisher and information provider. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange). For more information, visit http://www.elsevier.com/and http://www.reedelsevier.com/.