Earlier this week Crunchgear broke the news on two new upcoming Kindle models: a smaller form factor Kindle to be released this year ahead of the holidays, and a large screen (probably 8.5×11) to come sometime next year.
A couple of commenters in that post have pointed out that the large screen Kindle is perfect to target the college/university textbook market, a $5.5 billion market annually in the U.S. alone.
Most students still buy print versions of textbooks, and carrying them around is as big a pain as it has been for past generations of students. Most publishers now offer electronic versions of their textbooks – McGraw-Hill Education, for example, publishes 95% of their books electronically as well as in print. But there is no compelling device to read them on. The current kindle is too small, and laptops run out of power too quickly.
A new large screen kindle would solve those problems. The battery life is much longer than most electronic devices, and carrying a large Kindle is still a lot better than carrying ten heavy textbooks. Our guess is that Amazon will make a major push into the educational markets next year – it’s the only obvious reason to create a large screen Kindle.
My guess is that academics are going to make their best effort to prevent Amazon from bypassing the time-honored “College Bookstore Semesterly Gouge-Fest” with an obvious, convenient, inexpensive solution like the Kindle. If they had come out with the Kindle a few years earlier I would have certainly gotten one when I was a freshman.
actually, academics are going to love this. especially the ones who are textbook writers. students will no longer be able to sell their used textbooks.
yeah, the not being able to resell the book is going to be a plus for publishers.
On the other hand, I’m not sure how publishers will be able to DRM these to the point where students can’t just strip it off and give them away to friends. They may simply have to add a fee to the course to cover the book.
It would be nice if you will be able to sell your own books or just give it away if you wish. that way you could sell it if you want to.-JD
Sadly now books will be un-resalable. Instead of paying $120 for a physics book you’ll pay $80 and have nothing to show for it other than a DRM’d eBook.
…and how much did you get for that $120 textbook? $30-$40? Then resold at $80-90….the only ones making out here are the used book guys.
I suspect that the market will adjust with a much lower price of the text book. All the cost of print will eventually be cut out.
It’s a brilliant idea and students have been wanting this for so long but will the textbook publishers actually give in. That’s the real question. It is so absolutely absurd the way that textbooks are handled these days. A new edition is issued not even every year now but sometimes twice a year! They switch things up so that you basically have to drop $150 on a new book every time, making used books almost worthless because chapters and sections are printed differently and discussions questions are different. It’s such a scam to be honest.
Ben,
I agree. It’s a scam. The hypocrisy of academia is actually pretty funny; they demand 90% discounts on software for their students but turn around and mark up their textbooks by 1000% and force their students to get new editions each year.
Putting textbooks on tech like the Kindle will only make things worse for students. At least students now have the ability to sell used texts on, hum, Amazon. But with encryption technology, what are you going to do with the used book that’s siting on your hard drive once you’re done with it? Will you actually be able to sell your copy of the eBook? I doubt it. Either way, whether a used book on Amazon or an eBook on Amazon, Amazon wins. With the Kindle, the textbook sellers win.
I am guessing that eventually we would be able to transfer ownership of ebooks from one Amazon account to another. There will be a used ebook market. Why not? There will be a demand for it and the market will supply.
I don’t agree. I do understand that books are expensive and that students want to sell them back after their course is over, but, sometimes you can’t sell your book. Even when you can they give you about 10 to 15 percent of what you bought it for. If Amazon can sell you a 150 dollar book for 25 dollars there should be no reason for return. If you bought a hard copy for that amount and sold it back after use you wouldn’t get close to 25 dollars. I am planning on buying the kindle, I feel it will reshape education and help protect the envirment. My generation is all about going green and this is a great example of that.
This is absolutely true.
If they add highlighting and note taking features and it will be great! Do they have that already?
Yes, they have highlighting and note-taking features.
no used ebooks you moron, the “market will not supply” it’s a monopoly. stay in school
Guess tommy doesn’t get it or he’s joking around.
Don’t see the publishers liking this at all. Huge business getting students to pay up for titles every year – don’t forget them suing Kinkos, etc years ago when people had the gall to photocopy relevant textbook pages instead of buying the entire book. Publisher don’t really like the standard ebook idea, either – they want to charge same price as hard cover so they don’t canablize. But AMZN subsidizes cost of book so titles are $9.99 or less. Don’t see them doing that with textbooks.
ebooks would be cheaper to produce and distribute. As long as the publisher is making (profit) the same dollar amount as for print books, why would they be opposed to it.
OK, am I going to be the first one to comment on the stunning MS Word clipart image embedded in this story? :-p
You’re the only one that cares.
Wow fantastic idea. Reaing textbooks for school on the go in the subway or on the bus would be fantastic. I hate lugging big clunky textbooks around. http://www.read...ex.php?RTA=web2
Hmm, any idea how much the manufacturing and transport of textbook by publishers to retail outlets costs?
This might be the PR secret to help break the “Evil Gouging Monopoly”. Students can protest that the University is “not Green” if it doesn’t actively try to promote the eBook concept. That puts the liberal elites running the place in a tight spot. They might first try to ignore it in typical hypocritcal fashion as Aaron Stannard points out, but if students use PETA-type tactics to single out the most egregious individual professors for personal ridicule, it will at least make the elites uncomfortable. As Obama says — “Now is the time for Change!”
I like how you think.
i Hate the college textbook publishing industry…they publish new editions every semester; when they’re nearly identical
And we have no choice but to buy them, and we can’t resell them – since they’re virtually useless afterwards
it’s ridiculous, just plain ridiculous
Unfortunately for Amazon, the iPhone just killed the not-yet-released small kindle.
And for the big kindle, Apple knows how to kill it too, just be patient.
There’s absolutly no doubt…
The next Apple “moves” will be books and games:
http://spidouz....ooks-and-games/
just my 2 cents
Phil
I’m not high on the Kindle as a mainstream gadget but the textbook market is ripe for this type of product. The release date for the ‘textbook’ Kindle doesn’t support the strategy unless they’re waiting until this time next year to make their foray. October and you’ve missed the textbook rush by about a month.
I just blogged about this topic today and have plenty of Kindle commentary as well: http://usedbook...out-in-october/
Textbook publishers (and publishers in general) aren’t exactly embracing the Kindle and are suspect of having Amazon ‘own’ this market after getting what they feel is the short end of the stick from online sales.
Make it touch screen, notes addable, wifi, and add android OS/app platform, then that will be a killer device for the university kids. Yes, I just described the iPOD Touch of books.
If they use heavy DRM, will this eventually go into the same messy place as RIAA & the Music Industry ?
This sounds like a startup opportunity to make a new kind of interactive book experience that forces everyone to buy their own every year – more of a subscription to a dynamic content database rather than today’s model of a one-time purchase of static, out-of-date-already pages.
The main changes from version to version is just the cover art and layout. Content changes are a minimal.
Students are perhaps the most demanding users of “the Book” . i.e their use is extensive , daily and with repeated readings. And textbooks represent the industrial strength product in the market.Even after hard-bind I find people putting a cover on the book.
If Kindle can *REALLY* replace text books. then the paper format is going to be at real threat.
Electronic delivery of books, magazines and newspapers will be more useful in those markets which do not have a good distribution system. Amazon should push for international availability of Kindle
Large screens are also good for LARGE TEXT — you know, for all those old people who buy hardcover books because the fonts are larger. That seems like a much more plausible explanation that textbooks.
will they put ads in text books?
Publisher can do much worse, product placement. e.g. Physics questions with Ford Focus breaking, thermodynamics examples with starbucks coffee.
true although was thinking more like late night pizza, condoms…. that sort of thing
maybe at your community college, but not my institution of high repute. money grubber
The publishers are already moving towards eTextbooks.
Major publishers have a joint venture that has digital materials called CourseSmart. It’s in Beta and the price is about 50% of new books.
http://www.coursesmart.com/
The college bookstores are the biggest losers if the Kindle goes for textbooks. There will be no use for them.
There _should_ be no use for them!
You forget to mention little things like how students have a habit of highlighting and scribbling notes in the margins of books. Can a Kindle do that?
To say nothing of the fact that even if it does do all those things, you better not lose it without having some way to back up the information!
I wish I had one whilst I was at uni.
I think the issue here is with diagrams and color graphs and what not. Text books are littered with goodies like this that the Kinlde can’t support as of yet. But this certainly seems like something Amazon could tackle a lot easier than trying to add note scribblers and touch screen madness.
Publishers are indeed scared to let their content go in electronic format due to what happened to music, however it’s the direction things are going. However, kids already lug around a laptop, so I don’t think they are going to also lug essentially a second, dumbed down laptop (Kindel) as well.
Being a college student myself, if this were to come out and have an affordable price tag I would buy one in a second.
Great idea, but how about Kindle for international users? Where’s the Japanese one, the Europe version! I want Kindle!!!
Aww, cute picture. Is Rocky finally boning up to get his degree or is carrying all those books one of those old school, non-traditional workout methods he prefers?
Another reason this is awesome is the FIND feature. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished that I could just hit Cmd+F and search a term on a page or chapter while studying. That will be incredibly efficient.
“Most publishers now offer electronic versions of their textbooks”
Yes, though the publishers seem interested in eBooks primarily to eliminate the competition from their own used books. eBooks are licensed, not sold, and the license in not transferrable.
Word:
Books = sold.
eBooks = licensed.
Used books = sell.
Used eBooks = electronic waste.
teach English in Asia, Europe, anywhere you want. Good $$$ http://www.eslbean.com for more details.
http://diveinto...ture-of-reading
Read Act 6 for what I said a while ago
Overall, I think a move to the Kindle would be great. For consumers, I wouldn’t expect pricing on books to change at all, they’ll have to pitch this to book publishers as a way to INCREASE margins because they won’t have to print and ship a book, it will all be electronic instead. Who knows if this will work for the consumer though…
In any case, I’m very excited about this, other than for the costs.
As a current college student who has purchased an ebook text for a class, I can say that the Kindle would be smart to corner this market. If all of my books came that way, I’d snap up a Kindle post haste.
Saying that however, there is 1 problem I encountered with my ebook text. After paying half off for the book (I paid $25 vs $50) the ebook expired after 6 months. To me, if I purchase an ebook, it should last as long as my paper version does, or at least my right to view it and refer to it in the future.
It’s because of that problem that I will no longer purchase an ebook for college.
Not sure why I’m the only person to ask this, but why on Earth would anyone want textbooks to be in Kindle-format only?
If all of the schools in America (and the world) were to publish all of their textbooks on a Kindle, then all of the knowledge of all of our Universities would be locked up in a single proprietary format.
Textbooks should be in an Open Standards format to preserve their knowledge long past the death of DRM and the proprietary format of the moment.
You shouldn’t need Kindle-compatible hardware to read textbooks.
(At least with Apple’s DRM you can burn a CD and then rip from the CD. You can’t do that on a Kindle!)
I’m guessing eventually there will be some sort of open standards so the ebook can be read on any device.
Exactly… I would prefer a Cybook or any other non-proprietary device. If you’ve only ever used a Kindle, you should definitely check out a Cybook (BooksOnBoard – http://www.booksonboard.com – is giving one away for free, details on their RSS Feed: http://www.book...rss/bob_rss.xml) – I was pleasantly surprised. But yeah – I definitely would not select a Kindle for textbooks. That just plays into the overpriced textbook market.
Having made Pazap.com, dreaming, thinking, and trying to crack the 5.5 billion industry, I’ve thought of this before. The problem though is that such a device would have to be passed by each state’s laws to be able to make such a device a standard thing. Amazon would have to outbid Mcgraw Hill, add on top of it the time to enact such law with legislation, and if it does happen, it’ll probably take 5 or so years.
Let’s say it does. Still, students like to highlight. What if the battery runs out while in class? We now have another excuse from the lazy student to say “oh my kindle doesn’t work..” then there’d have to be some amazon genius bar – booth on every campus using kindles. We may end up with a ROI that is now questionable.
That makes absolutely no sense. Why would you need state laws to crack the textbook industry? Why would each state need to pass a law? Why couldn’t the college just pass a requirement that all students buy an ebook reader?
The UC and UT systems are each large enough on their own to make such demands. Any of the Ivies probably has the influence to make such demands.
Why would Amazon outbid McGraw? Amazon = device provider, McGraw = content provider. Two different levels in the chain.
Why would a battery running out in class be an excuse? With a battery life in excess of one day (with the wireless off), a student wouldn’t have an excuse to say the battery died. Besides, as with laptops, Amazon could just provide a power adapter.
And what the hell is a genius bar? is that one of those crapple things where the “geniuses” pretend to solve problems in crappleware?
You’re right, it makes no sense that State University unionized bookstores have to abide by state laws that regulate which books are used and how much they will go for, but unfortunately, it’s fact.
I picked on McGraw because they’re a major force in the textbooks industry. There’s obviously something happening here that would add to Amazon’s obstacle for this new textbook revolution.
And students get lazy and drunk sometimes, they will forget to recharge their electric device if such a peripheral is required for class.
Now having a book, electronically, is just too “digital” for some students, who don’t have time to keep stuff up to date, it’s easier to just buy a hard copy… http://blabtech.blogspot.com
I would see the kindle good for news, novel reading. But academic textbooks, I fail to see it as a replacement. Probably an addition. Add $5 and get the soft copy on Kindle.
And imagine, Kindle lets you down on exam night. And by murphy’s law, it will!
@uberz has a key point. Color is really essential for textbooks (has been for 10+ years). Color on the Kindle is still AT LEAST 2 years out (has been 2+ years out for some years). Can not see this working for college texts until color eInk is solved.
this is what the internet was created to do. a perfect 10, congratulations jeff bezos. save the trees too, cool. however we should really look at the textbook experience holistically – there are certain benefits of a large paper textbook that no software can quite replicate.
what if the kindle helps kids learn MORE, though ? we will not know until we see it in the real world, so good luck, kids, don’t skimp on studying just because it’s all electronic. (how many screens we are surrounding ourselves with….)
In Germany students make a lot of cash by selling used textbooks using services like http://www.bookya.de
What will they do if you can buy the book cheaper in electronic form, but can’t sell it after using it?
Sell them ebook and then sell them ebook portable viewer and make lot of money!
Are you in 5th grade?
Nintendo already has textbooks for School Students in Japan on the DS but Im sure the DS is not good enough for College /University Students .
The reality for creators of academic materials is harsh in the current, print world. The publishing house gives NO advance, the creator provides ALL materials, and receives 7% of the sales price only if sold at FULL price. Digital sales are the same, but require NO cost investment by the publishing house as they are used for the print format. Traditionally, a print book is priced at 10 times the actual cost ( editing, printing and distribution). Academic books, however, are priced at a cost of 20 times because of limited sales ( less than 1000 copies of academic books are printed at a run as opposed to 15000 copies for a standard popular book.)
Kindle, as noted, is asking for proprietary formats and pricing without the print costs of a standard publishing house. Academic institutions need to generate more income in light of today’s economy and are creating their own digital presses. An example is Emory University, Atlanta’s new french language program, which is created as an interactive web format with subscription protection. Pricing is greatly reduced for the students and the university/creators have cut the “middle” man of distribution out of the cost factors.
Several other institutions in England in the medical field are now turning to this approach and format rather than PDF files. Using a computer allows for color, highlighting tags, and continual access. As noted, it is also a GREEN approach, and allows for unlimited updates without increased cost as the academic can make changes online through the CMS.
If such a thing were to be standard in the future, it would be equivalent of the music industry and the convergence from analog to digital. A textbook which page has ripped can still be read. Even if a whole page is gone, studying still continues.
But if a kindle has the slightest error, it’s shot.
And while using such a device, a student both consciously and subconsciously constantly asks ‘how’s my battery? how long till another recharge?’ vs an ‘analog’ book that’s just there.
Textbook market? I thought textbooks are already dead…that computers and e-books already defeated it. So, it’s still alive. What a waste…
No one seems to mentioning anything about the lasting effects on one’s eyes that will most probably result from reading text on computer screens. Someone once said that if the paper book had been invented after the laptop, it would have seemed like progress. As someone who grew up reading old-fashioned paper books, I’m afraid of the damage that might be caused by reading digitally. I don’t think humans were meant to read books on computer screens.
Until a Kindle is built with color capability don’t expect publishers to bite. I love reading novels on my Kindle but textbooks require more than just greyscale photos. And when color is added that’s when battery requirement go thru the roof. Don’t get me wrong. We can’t sustain the current insanity of creating a ten pound book from a twenty pounds of tree to use for just two years and then toss. Electronic books just make sense. As for Publishers, they have always fed off students. They did before ebooks and they will after ebooks. Get over it. They may still be breaking students bank accounts – at least they won’t be breaking students backs as well.
As a high school student I routinely carry 4-6 textbooks around school every day. I would gladly pay extra money and give up any chance of resale on textbooks once in college simply to avoid having to lug books around for another four years. But perhaps that’s just me….
I want this for my kids too… they are in kindergarten all the way up to 6th grade. They understand technology. Show them rich media, show them images that move and let them hear speeches!
Viva la technolgie!
Willing to break the law to do the right thing. ,