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CourseSmart Brings 7,000+ Textbooks to the iPhone and iPod Touch

How does the use of e-textbooks affect the earnings of the authors and publishers? I'm wondering how much resistance there will be (or already is) from their side as it catches on with more and more students.

I also wonder how much of a problem it is when students rent temporary access to books and therefore don't retain the books for future reference. I've often consulted course textbooks that I kept after the class ended. They could be either printed or e-books, but if I no longer have access to them I'm not likely to re-rent them just to look something up. Perhaps the wisest students think about it case by case and decide which books to rent and which to buy.
 
50% of a retail, physical textbook?
this is outrageously expensive.

and then the material disappears after 180 days?

if there is a market for soft copies of textbooks then this company has set up its business model for failure. waaaaay too expensive. what are their competitors doing? where will their competitors be with their pricing in 6 months time?
 
iTablet Killer App

This could be the Apple tablet killer application. Issue the app early on the iPhone and make people beg for the iTablet. Considering the cost of college text books this would pay for the tablet by the end of a student's fourth semester.
 
Seriously Green

A couple of things come to mind. First, imagine how green this is when you consider what it takes to print a bookshelf full textbooks. Second, every textbook I've ever seen seem to be out-dated in 1 to 2 years with the prof insisting that students use the most recent edition which is one of the reasons you get hardly any money back when you sell it back. The other thing that I thought of is why couldn't someone connect a video out cable from their iPhone to view the textbook on a (big screen) television for easier reading?

The one thing that concerns me is if someone stole my iPhone or it broke...there goes $1,000 in textbooks too. I'd hope I could re-download it or re-sync it from iTunes!
 
Michael73 said:
The other thing that I thought of is why couldn't someone connect a video out cable from their iPhone to view the textbook on a (big screen) television for easier reading?
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That wouldn't be necessary, CourseSmart's e-books are available in a browser too. I had a CS book through them last semester, and I'm guessing this is just an extension of that, with no additional cost.
 
I agree with the emerging consensus here: this is an ideal tablet app (less than ideal for iPhone/iPod but still interesting) and that the rentals are overpriced by an order of magnitude.

That being said, I think that we're seeing the new paradigm - squashed-wood texts are going the way of the dodo. Especially in fast moving fields like most of the sciences, if it's not online it may as well not exist. Science is all about open-access and peer-review, but publishers are still struggling to build a business model that fits this. I'm now being asked to *pay* $3000 in order to allow a scientific publication to be 'open-access'... so it appears that the publishers think the government granting agencies should be paying for this. I don't think that model will work. I'm not sure how it'll settle out, but I wouldn't want to have stock in a textbook publishing company right now.

Cheers
 
The only way to make this really feasible is to bundle it with the book. As the article says you need the book too, this is just to accompany it, but who wants to spend 1.5x the cost of the textbook. Now bundle it for an extra $10 and someone might say new textbook + $10 vs. used textbook in order to get the e-version too, and all of sudden they are selling more new textbooks.
 
Game changer

I've been talking about something like this with my daughter for 2 years now. I've always said if there could be a vehicle/device that could port around your textbooks, homework assignments, contacts, etc..., it would change everything the way a typical teenager/college student operates while in their institutions for learning. Everything that could be centralize into one device would take off mounds of bulk and physical labor that kids (at least the ones that study) now lug around throughout their day.

We're on the precipice of the a fully functional digital classroom - where kids could very well, basically, do everything online! Except for physical education and art classes, there should be no reason to use as much paper they are using now. If Apple creates an iTablet, as I believe they should, it would be a game changer for all other that follows them into this field. A publisher, such as this one, stands to corner the market and squarely establish a foothold in future digital offerings.
 
chr1s60 said:
I knew something like this would eventually come out. When I was in college I kept waiting and waiting and nothing was released. Things like this will make it so much easier for students.
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I agree - I would have loved to have had something like this when I was in university. Although there have been a few books I'm happy to have a hard copy of, to refer back to now that I'm out in the real world.
 
NOT WORTH THE MONEY AT ALL.

I use textbooks for longer than 180 days as reference material in future classes and I can easily get more than 50% of the value back later. Not to mention that when I have open book exams, a virtual textbook won't work.

Textbooks are completely overpriced and the people who set these prices so absurdly high should curl up and die.
 
This is wonderful news!! As an educator at the college level most of my students have been asking for this. I teach geology and at the intro level the majority of students are only taking it for their gen ed req. There is a new text every year because of revisions and the students are unable to sell back most of the time and have no use for the book after the class.
Allowing them to rent the book at 50% for the semester is a great deal for them. You have no idea how many textbooks I see in the recycling bin after the final exam!
Plus i'm sure they'll come up with something so you can keep it at the end of the time if you wish (extra $20-30) would still be a good deal with how expensive text books are.
Coursesmart is a great site and I've been looking at them for awhile. This will push me into using them more especially to go with the new tablet!
 
Hi,

I think this is a great idea, but it seems over priced given that you can't keep it or re sell it. Not that I would ever open a first year, second year, or third year text book after final exams. Forth year....a distant possibility.

When I was in school I didn't even bother buying the text books as I could sign them out of the library whenever I needed. Didn't own a computer either, but that's another story.

s.
 
mac*jedi*g said:
I've been talking about something like this with my daughter for 2 years now. I've always said if there could be a vehicle/device that could port around your textbooks, homework assignments, contacts, etc..., it would change everything the way a typical teenager/college student operates while in their institutions for learning. Everything that could be centralize into one device would take off mounds of bulk and physical labor that kids (at least the ones that study) now lug around throughout their day.

We're on the precipice of the a fully functional digital classroom - where kids could very well, basically, do everything online! Except for physical education and art classes, there should be no reason to use as much paper they are using now. If Apple creates an iTablet, as I believe they should, it would be a game changer for all other that follows them into this field. A publisher, such as this one, stands to corner the market and squarely establish a foothold in future digital offerings.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's called a laptop. You don't need a new tablet device to do any of that.
 
anubis said:
Example. New textbook costs $150. That would make the electronic version $75 and I can't sell it back when I'm done. You could buy that same textbook used at the bookstore for about $100 and sell it back for $50 when you're done, for an out-of-pocket cost of $50. And I don't have to squint at a tiny iPhone screen for hours upon hours.
Click to expand...

Donno where you went to school, but at the University I went to, books were about $120 each new, $90 to $100 used. If you sold them back at the end of the semester you were lucky to get $10 for them, most of the time, just $5!

Eventually I just refused to sell them back allowing them to make such huge profits from it. I would either sell or give them away privately. But today if I could get a $50 eBook and not have to deal with lugging them around, I would do it in a heart beat. But then again after the first year I rarely lugged them around, I would just go to class, take good notes, and go back to my apartment to study.
 
Awesome! I still think most people will choose a full size screen for extended periods of reading and note-taking, but for when you are "on the go," being able to fill in down time by pulling out your iPhone and doing some reading is certainly a good idea. I just hope the full-size E-book (or Apple Tablet with E-book reader) prevails as the primary E-book. I think reading for ten hours straight on the iPhone could make me a candidate for eye glasses.
 
Don't like this approach

First of all, electronic copies are not a replacement for hard copies. But I love the idea of having a text on my iphone for reference. But for 180 days? get real.

As a professor (or anyone actually using their books in real life), you need these books later in life. I still have many of my college books. To be honest, most people don't *really* learn it until later in life,when they are working. That is when the book starts to make sense.

This renting business says to me you are just trying to get a grade and get out. Students should take pride in ownership of their books. They spent all this time familiarizing themselves with them, a huge investment, and then you throw it away?

Well, I guess its not surprise that students are getting worse and worse (at least in my field). And I do have a legitimate vantage point, I still work in industry and am a professor. Advancements in electronics do not necessarily correlate to advancements in education.
 
My prediction of the Killer iTablet feature one step closer

mackensteff said:
In the previous post on the killer feature, I never put the one I think many are hoping for: E-text books.
Click to expand...

If executed correctly Apple cements the education market, and makes bucco bucks! If executed poorly we still get the tablet mac. This could turn tablet from a niche market to mainstream if students embrace having text on a portable device. E-readers might be a niche market, but college students not so much!
 
Without the tablet....

Reading textbooks on an iPhone sounds about as satisfying as telephone sex...except with telephone sex I probably won't go blind.
 
CylonGlitch said:
Donno where you went to school, but at the University I went to, books were about $120 each new, $90 to $100 used. If you sold them back at the end of the semester you were lucky to get $10 for them, most of the time, just $5!

Eventually I just refused to sell them back allowing them to make such huge profits from it. I would either sell or give them away privately. But today if I could get a $50 eBook and not have to deal with lugging them around, I would do it in a heart beat. But then again after the first year I rarely lugged them around, I would just go to class, take good notes, and go back to my apartment to study.
Click to expand...
Hahaha, some of my text books cost $400 new, $360 used.

I HATE this idea though. If it were about $20 for the book, then sure, I'd love it, but my combination of poor eyesight, and a ridiculously high price point really turn me off.

Not to mention the fact that a lot of text books for my lectures are used during class.

What about hardware failure? A book is generally usable, even in poor condition. I spill coffee on it by accident? At least it works, the pages might be wrinkled and sticky for a few days, but I can still view the text.

Spill coffee on my cellphone/most electronics? I could have potentially lost everything.

I doubt books will ever disappear. I don't care what people think, they're sort of a staple. I hate carrying around large books, yes, but at least I can sell them back and they won't suddenly break into my home and take it from me if there's some sort of copyright issue.

I'll stick to my heavy books. I can just deal with the weight by switching them around during my breaks between lectures.
 
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