A Closer Look at iBooks Author, Textbooks and Exclusivity

[CFreymarc]

You think so? What's behind that thought? I see it as a great boon to the small printing houses because their costs for limited runs will be very low compared to gearing up for putting words and graphics on paper. Once through the editing process, small printing houses can now move directly to selling the textbook.

No longer a need to go through the pre-production run, the hard copy proof-reading, corrections and then doing a short-run of printing. This way they don't need to store copies until they are sold, pack books for shipping, invoice, collect and disburse royalties, send out advance copies, etc.

Once the professor signs off on the edited copy, it goes right to Apple's iBookstore and the money rolls in.

Exactly, the print house with the paper press iron and the layout house are very rarely under the same roof these days. This is a boon for typeset and layout people, not those running the printing mills.

 

[baryon]

Then you're either an English major who requires 10 paperbacks per class or you haven't been in college in the past 20 years.

I grew up in the French system, and every student just sold their books to the students one class below them… it was basically free, but if you had to buy a new book, it would cost as much as you'd expect a book to cost, especially that it's for students, and that it's compulsory… Do you really pay $75 for every single textbook in school/university in the US? I can't imagine students paying that much every year for each book, that would be far too expensive!

 

[yt75]

Model, new role

ebook, epub, ibook, pdf, text, apps, websites !
What is needed in this "affair" is a new role more than anything else.
This new role could be described as "personal contracts/licences holder" "account managers for personal contract/licences and login/passwds or certificates"(no contents or copies in there, just references), something like that, several of them of course, and ability to move all your "assets" or "belongings" from one to the other, so that a trust relationship can exist regarding the privacy of these data (and privacy of these data also under strong legal constraints for these organisations).
Then you can have an environment with a clear role separation between these organisations on one side, and editors, on line shops, on line content holders and difusers on the other.
Which then could allow a user to buy an ebook, apps, websites (access to) "for life"(or with some timing guarenteed in a strict legal point of view, but "for life" in spirit), possibility of upgrade if new edition and you feel like it, and that's it.
Enough with these "private bookshelves"(music, video, sito shelves) linked to some device maker, on line shops, "social network", or some other giant !
A bit more developed below :
http://iiscn.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/concepts-economie-numerique-draft/
(and in the "copies_licences" text (2007) linked in the post)

And almost EVERYTHING already there really