College textbooks cater to a huge market, as books are used by college students which increase in number every year
. Also, new editions are published annually which render older editions into useless pieces of paper.
College book prices, these days, have skyrocketed and excellent print editions can only be afforded by a small group of students. Majority of students, look towards cheaper editions of the same textbook in the form of Lower price or LPE editions available in the market exclusively for students from Southern Asian countries.
The books used by students in colleges are part of a program of well-thought curriculum made when members of the intelligentsia form different countries or within the same country meet and discuss the major textbooks which should be used by students in any particular discipline in their college courses because of the quality of expression and the extent of knowledge imparted by certain authors of the respective books. Therefore, a certain book by a certain author gets to have worldwide demand and availability.
New colleges then follow the lead of highly rated colleges in setting up their own curriculum of education on the basis of the curriculums established in these highly rated colleges.
College textbooks have a huge market for buyers as well as sellers as they address to a large number of students, whose strength increases exponentially, considering societal and government pressures for the masses to educate themselves and become respected members of the society. College education is a step in the ladder to achieve this goal.
A very common trend amongst students who are either unable to purchase costly textbooks or are unable to find the relevant editions for their course is to borrow an original print from a friend or from a library in possession of it and to get it photocopied at a cheap rate per page. This way, both problems of cost as well as availability are amicably resolved.