In a message of , Dave Mainwaring (1:321/120) writes:
 DM> TC>it was discovered certain parties were getting kickbacks from the 
 DM>book
 DM> TC>publishers through local book stores to change the books.  
 DM>
 DM>A few years ago I was working with a candidate who had been a text book 
 DM>salesman. He refered to his role as selling adoptions, getting teachers 
 DM>to adopt the books he was selling to be used by the school or in 
I heard a story from a salesman about a physics department at a university.   
One of the faculty had been paid to review a text by the publisher, which is  
fine; they normally hire several profs to help the editors and the authors to 
 evaluate and improve the text.  However, this guy then felt he was obligated 
 to promote the text in his department.  When a committee looked at several  
choices to see which book to adopt, he went around twisting arms in favor of  
the book that he had reviewed because he felt he was obligated to do that!
Salesmen have lots of horror stories.  There was one psychology prof who  
requested free "examination" copies of scores of texts just so he could then  
sell them to the bookstores as used ....
 
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