The Fall semester will soon be approaching (or should I say encroaching?) and shopping lists will soon contain ISBN codes galore. As we all well know, textbook prices are often somewhere in the hundreds, and many of us never do crack those bad boys open after we shell out the cash for them. So does all this makes sense?
Websites like Textbook Torrents and Chegg.com are saying heck no (though some more legally than others). Textbook Torrents, a site that allows students to share digital textbook files for free, has gotten quite a bit of attention lately, after publishers requested that it take down some of its listings. The site complied, but the debate over whether this is a new kind of piracy continues. Chegg offers a Netflix-like solution: renting textbooks for the semester and helping students save a whole bunch, provided you're okay with the fact that you can't highlight the pages. Some other alternatives include SwapTree.com and your school's library.
Oh yes, and NYPIRG is pushing for legislation forcing publishers to cut their textbook prices, but I feel that we're all missing the point here. 
Maybe instead of persecuting an industry that's just trying to make money like the rest of us, we should start encouraging the industry to evolve. Why is it that instructors are still assigning textbooks when the Internet is flooded with free information? Why is Wikipedia not considered a legitimate source of information by professors? Do millions of people check on textbook content to make sure it is factual? Maybe what needs to happen is for textbook publishers to wake up and start doing something more constructive, like charging schools a fee for aggregating class-specific information from online sources.
And I mean, come on! Why are we even talking about how expensive textbooks are when we should be talking about the fact that no one is reading them? NYPIRG recommends that teachers and students use old editions of books to save money, but wait a minute, isn't education about new information? And new information happens faster than even the latest edition of a textbook can handle. Even if the legislation does cut book costs down from $80 to $60... that's a $60 paperweight and another missed opportunity to get something deeper from your education.
Are publishers greedy, or slow to adjust to changing conditions? Is pirating textbooks civil disobedience or theft? We all have opinions (I have mine – the latter in both cases). In the end, though, opinions may be less important than a simple fact – the train has left the station and it isn’t going back. We are witnessing an act of rebellion, motivated by real anger, and the publishers can’t threaten or litigate away.
It’s time to try something new. It is possible to harness new technologies and smart business models to provide a market-based solution. That’s what we are doing at Flat World Knowledge (www.flatworldknowledge.com). We left careers at Prentice Hall to try a fresh approach that provides value to students (free textbooks online and low cost choices of other formats like print-on-demand, audio, etc), value to faculty (books by top scholars in their field distributed under an open license on an open platform so faculty can modify them if they wish), value to authors (who are compensated on sales – they can earn at least comparable royalties under our model) and value to us (if we provide value then we can capture value in return and be profitable).
Consumers have demonstrated that they will buy DRM-free solutions if they are treated with dignity and respect. Our model is built on this cornerstone. Will it work? Rather than opine about it, we’ll just do it, and we’ll let the market decide.
Posted by: Eric Frank | July 07, 2008 at 09:18 AM
Eric, thanks for your comment. I just checked out your site, and it is very exciting. Can't wait to see how it develops.
Posted by: Tania | July 07, 2008 at 11:14 AM
The Book Torrent site got shut down. Students are already too lazy to deal with shipping, what makes you think they'll ship x2 to return rented books? How about buying used textbooks with Your cell phone? The site is called pazap.com
Posted by: Dominic Son | July 11, 2008 at 01:05 PM
Ooh pazap looks pretty cool. Thanks for the suggestion. Re: Chegg, it seems like a lot of students are using it. I never have though, so I'm not loyal to any particular site. But I'd say I'm most excited about flatworldknowledge (from the first comment).
Posted by: Tania | July 11, 2008 at 02:04 PM
We are so happy you stumbled upon Chegg. We are ready for the 2008-2009 school year and are serving 2,100 plus schools this year.
Order soon as August 19th is the biggest textbook ordering day. As always, we would love to know your feedback once you have tried the service.
Chegg Support Team Member
Posted by: Chegg Support Team Member | July 21, 2008 at 03:02 PM