Could this be the face of textbooks to come? (NEWSCOM)
Digital college textbooks
By Chris Gaylord | 06.24.08
Just as Apple got millions of college students to leave their CD collections at home each September in favor of a tiny iPod, Amazon is trying to convince undergrads that there’s no reason to lug around a backpack full of textbooks. Just buy a Kindle.
This fall, Princeton University Press will begin publishing Kindle-edition textbooks. It’s on a short list of printing houses that are testing the e-textbook waters. (Kindle has also snagged Yale, Oxford, and the University of California.) But Princeton is the only to attempt a Kindle-first launch, offering Robert Shiller’s new economics book “The Subprime Solution” on the Amazon electronic reader two weeks before students can buy a hard copy.
Kindle, which went on sale in November, attracted a lot of buzz. The device was backordered for weeks and now is on sale at 10 percent off.
But Kindle is really designed to replace paperbacks, not thick textbooks. For one, don’t expect “Gray’s Anatomy”; the Kindle is not very good at graphics or diagrams (and securing the digital rights for some images is often more trouble than it’s worth for publishers).
Nonetheless, Princeton plans to roll out hundreds of books through the gadget’s online store. UCal already offers 40 and wants to publish more.
Perhaps the Kindle will become the next iPod, as some have suggested, and enjoy ubiquity across college campuses. Then again, perhaps it will more closely resemble a different handheld: Palm – all the rage for a while and then ignored.
So, how are Kindle textbooks sales doing? Inside Higher Education reports that the University of California Press has sold at least one of its volumes “more than a dozen times in a month on Kindle.” Not the most inspiring anecdote, but everything has to start somewhere.
[Via Yahoo! Buzz]
Also check out:
Books blog: Why I bought a Kindle
Essay: Book 2.0? I prefer 1.0
Tech Review: Costly ‘Kindle’ reader gets a lot of it right
Comments
2. Tommy | 06.27.08
The good: no more heavy books to lug around.
The bad: no more getting some of your cash back from buybacks.
3. andrea | 08.03.08
What I don’t understand is why these books aren’t already in e-format. I mean, they had to be typed somewhere, and printed somehow. And many of my textbooks have come with discs. Why don’t they just offer them electronically, in a locked format that can’t be changed (but allows for highlighting and tablet notes), where we can view the actual book on our computers? I don’t see how it’s not simple, aside from the red-tape of licensing things for e-format..which is silly, since they’re already licensed for the book format.. SO SICK of simple things being made difficult for $$$.
4. Kta | 08.04.08
Not all schools offer a buy-back program. If my art history text book (a $150 investment) were made available on the Kindle for a fraction of the cost, I would definitely have to take that opportunity. It just seems like the Kindle could be marketed to a whole different group of people (college students) if a majority of textbooks were made available.
5. Kta | 08.04.08
Not to mention the money the publishers would save in printing costs. They would have to spend money on licensing, but I’m sure that’s not nearly as much money as the actual publishing.
6. Sara | 08.13.08
College textbooks are insanely expensive. My freshman year alone, textbooks cost me about $1700 (more than 3 months rent). Did I use all of these textbooks? Of course not. At the end of the year, I sold back my textbooks for a grand total of… wait for it… $105 dollars (not even enough to buy another textbook!). Most of the textbooks had been updated, so no one wanted my older versions. My alternative was to purchase a Cybook eBook reader (http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewproduct&PRODUCT=5) and use it to upload ebooks and ebook textbooks. I prefer it to the Kindle because the non-proprietary format allows me to buy eBooks from a variety of sources… I’m not limited to Amazon’s store. This has saved me a lot of money (and space) so far. I will continue to buy textbooks in eBook format, and I encourage everyone else to do so as well.
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1. Ted | 06.25.08
Sounds like a good idea to me. The problem with previous textbooks in e-book form is that they were hard to read/follow on a computer/laptop. I think the Kindle solves this problem.
I wonder if the Kindle does Digital Highlighting…