Tung stressed that publishing textbooks for general students does not bring as much profit as many people believe.
There are eight steps involved in publishing a textbook. These include setting up a group of authors, developing a model with a general and a detailed outline, compiling sample lessons and experimental teaching, preparing rough drafts and submitting a statement to the authors, editing the drafts, conducting an internal review, conducting a second round of national review, launching the textbooks, and providing training in the use of the textbooks.
“There are many costs involved in compiling and publishing books. The Vietnam Education Publishing House and other textbook publishers must disclose prices and explain the costs that make up the selling prices. To do this, we need approval from the Price Control Authority of the Ministry of Finance,” he explained.
“We make almost no profit from textbooks. Only from other books, such as supplementary books and reference books, can we expect profit,” he said.
He said it was not true that textbooks generated revenues of VND 3 trillion and profits of VND 300 billion.
“If publishing textbooks is so profitable, many other publishers and private companies would jump on the bandwagon,” he said.
He said textbook prices depend on five main factors: manuscript organization costs, royalties, production costs (paper and printing costs), textbook lending fees (distribution fee), and financing costs (loan interest).
The cost of manuscript organization of a series of textbooks is hundreds of billions of dong, while royalties are calculated based on the number of teaching hours (regardless of whether the number of printed books is high or low). The total royalties that the publisher has to pay to an author for “Ket noi tri thuc voi cuoc song” (Knowledge and Life) and “Chan troi sang tao” (Creative Horizon) is about 70 billion VND per year.
Production costs run into trillions of dong, including paper and printing costs. The publisher is now 100 percent dependent on bank loans. Distribution costs are also enormous.
Tung said that Vietnam Education Publishing House has a license to publish textbooks, but so do seven other publishers. The license is issued by the Ministry of Information and Communications, but only six publishers have done so.
According to Tung, the publisher plans to reduce textbook prices by 10 percent before the new academic year 2024-2025 by eliminating the two most important cost items – manuscript organization and distribution costs.
Thanh Hung
