Raygun launches new website exposing textbook costs

Raygun (RaygunReports.com), a new website, recently launched to the public with something never done before — detailed reports that show students whether they need a current edition of a textbook or can get the same information out of a previous edition, avoiding unnecessary spending and saving up to 95 percent in textbook costs. 

The exorbitant cost of textbooks significantly contributes to the burgeoning state of student debt. Raygun estimates that students entering college will have to pay $81.30 per month for 5 years simply to pay for textbooks. A chain of price gouging starts with the publisher and ends with the bookstore, which commands a profit margin akin to what cigarette makers and Healthcare REITs enjoy. Raygun is breaking that chain by providing students with the information and transparency they need to stop paying for new, overpriced textbooks and still have the books they need to excel in school. Raygun exposes the differences (or lack thereof) between new and previous editions of widely used college textbooks in their C.L.O.N.E. Reports. 

New textbooks are carefully compared to their cheaper, previous edition counterparts for any differences in content, figures, and problem sets. C.L.O.N.E. Reports track if there are any discrepancies and, if there are, provide links to the new concepts and content online. Founders Aaron Priest and Adam Seithel, recent grad school students themselves, truly believe in higher education and founded Raygun as a way to bring college costs down. Adam and Aaron firmly believe that students can buy an older edition of a textbook, with a C.L.O.N.E. Report, and do as well academically as students who buy new editions. 

“Higher-education in the U.S. isn't affordable anymore,” said Raygun co-founder Adam Seithel. “And the textbook market is broken, at best, and predatory at worst. Higher-education has taken the focus away from the most important element – the student. At Raygun, we are empowering students to make informed decisions when purchasing their textbooks. An informed student base will have the best chance at shifting the market away from these outrageous prices. The best part is, we can make these changes today.”

Connie Martinson Talks Books

Palm Springs a la Carte
Reviewed by Connie Martinson

It is said that every business man or woman has two businesses, his own and the desire to be in show business or run a restaurant. Neither is the way the dream seemed. In Palm Springs, Mel Haber found the way to combine both. He wrote with Marshall Terrill "Palm Springs a la Carte: The Colorfull World of the Caviar Crows at Their Favorite Desert Hideaway"(Barricade Books $23.95).

In other words, can a small town boy from Brooklyn, NY find happiness in the sunny Palm Springs running a hotel and restaurant? This is before Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells, when there was only Palm Springs and the rest was sand.

When he was 13 Mel's father died, a month before his father was at his Bar Mitzvah, his father was in a business where five checks arrived every month and he knew everyone when the family went to Miami Beach, Mafia and show folk. After his father's death, the checks stopped and Mel started a series of businesses. He got married young, had children and had a partner, Artie, who shared in the various businesses that Mel was in. In 1971 Mel decided he wasn't in love with his wife and that he was happiest when he was in California.

On a trip to Palm Springs with his new friend, Barbra, he started to look at real estate and on April 15, 1975, he bought the Ingleside Inn and restaurant for $300,000 dollars. He never looked back. There were tough financial years, there were people he never should have hired, but where else could he have gotten to know Frank Sinatra and catered his pre-wedding dinner to Barbara Sinatra at the restaurant now known as "Melvyn's".

Mel was present when a certain man who stepped out of The Sopranos placed a phone call to that certain singer telling him to be at the Dinner Theatre in Westchester, NY.

Along the way, Mel remarried and he has a daughter, Stephanie, who is in college. He opened disco dancing restaurants, and a Chinese restaurant, he even had a late night radio show. .Due to the economy and changing times, both have closed. Today, Mel is 72 but he still has the Ingleside Inn and Melvyn's and as he said to me when we taped, that if he sold it, five minutes later it would be "Mel, who?". I laughed and reminded him of the Jack Warner quote about "next week I am just a rich old, Jew". And with changing times, Palm Springs is coming back to be the centre of attention.

To buy a signed copy of Palm Springs a la Carte, go to www.inglesideinn.com, or visit Amazon.com.