Used Books Blog

My recent post on Textbook Torrents has been both popular and controversial. Though still off line the latest seems to indicate we haven’t seen the end of Textbook Torrents.

In the interim, I’m compiling a list of sites where students can gain access to free textbooks.

Textbook Revolution

“TBR’s mission is to drive the adoption of free textbooks by teachers and professors. We want to get these books into classrooms. Our approach is to bring all of the free textbooks we can find together in one place, review them, and let the best rise to the top and find their way into the hands of students in classrooms around the world.”

Wikibooks

“Wikibooks is a Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. Wikibooks began on July 10, 2003, since then Wikibooks has grown to include over 30,398 pages in a multitude of textbooks created by volunteers like you!”

Open Text Book

“Open Text Book is a registry of textbooks (and related materials) which are open — that is free for anyone to use, reuse and redistribute. It is run by the Open Knowledge Foundation”

Scribd

“Through Scribd.com, iPaper, and the Scribd Platform, Scribd is changing the way people view, publish, and monetize documents. Through our vast library of content and our unique document display technology, we hope to unlock the information in the world’s documents and make it readily accessible to everyone.”

Scribd doesn’t specifically aim to provide free textbooks but there seem to be many available. Searches for specific titles or subjects often bring back a substantial list of results. Outside of textbooks, Scribd can be used as a deep source of student contributed notes.

Nearly all of the sites above are not in violation of any copyright laws. Scribd is the exception, but only because they allow users to upload materials. However, they seem responsive to DMCA take down notices.

This list is not comprehensive, but I believe represents the largest and best of the bunch. Others are extremely narrow in focus, abandoned or overrun with advertising ploys. Please let me know if I’ve missed any that merit inclusion on this list.

Fiskadoro by Denis Johnson is a jumbled, frustrating post-apocalyptic novel. Don’t expect a paint-by-numbers approach to revealing how things went wrong, nor what happened between that fateful day and the present. There is no omniscient character to provide the necessary background. There is no guide. Instead Johnson’s characters inhabit the world as it is, without the explanation that might bring clarity to the reader.

I admire what Denis Johnson is trying to do in Fiskadoro. He immerses the reader in what it might really be like to be a survivor. History is lost or, worse, is a warped collection of things heard or imagined. The connection to the past is limited, receding away until it vanishes like a sunset never to return. What remains isn’t well understood or is taken for granted as part of daily life.

Admiration and enjoyment don’t always go hand in hand.

Johnson creates a realistic world in which the survivors, and reader, are often fumbling for answers. The survivors crave those answers. They want to know what happened, how it happened and what comes next. And so did I! There are a few sign-posts in Fiskadoro that point to a quarantine and some sort of civilization in Cuba. There is one particular scene late in the book that paints an interesting portrait of the hours or days after the bombs fell. But it’s not enough to quench my thirst for answers. And while I know that’s what Johnson wants me to feel, it leaves me frustrated.

Yes, I enjoy post-apocalyptic novels and Johnson provides one reason I might be drawn to this theme.

Can we help it if sometimes we like to tell stories that want, as their holiest purpose, to excite us with pictures of danger and chaos?

I’ll admit that I see part of myself in that statement. But it’s overwhelmed with the idea of starting again; of battling back from the brink; of stripping down all the old conventions and building anew; of how you might respond should civilization disintegrate. What would you do if …? I am intrigued by this idea.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, The Postman by David Brin and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell all answer this central question and satisfy in different ways. Fiskadoro doesn’t.

Oddly, the best passages in the book revolve around the past life of a now elderly, nearly mute, woman. The reader is taken back to her harrowing escape from Saigon. This is where the book comes alive and Johnson is certainly drawing some parallels between the two timelines with themes such as the breakdown of society, of leaving the past behind completely and of survival.

I don’t doubt Johnson’s writing ability. He’s talented, with interesting insight …

The sabotage of knowledge by a wealth of facts - they weren’t professors, but guerrillas.

and observations.

The seagulls walked back and forth at the border of the water, all bellies and beaks, throwing out their chests with an air of flat assumption like small professors.

In the end Fiskadoro proves that the post-apocalyptic genre is tough to get right, even for gifted writers. With all the great post-apocalyptic novels out there, I simply can’t recommend Fiskadoro by Denis Johnson.

CrunchGear is reporting that Kindle 2.0 could be released as early as October.

The first is an updated version with the same sized screen, a smaller form factor, and an improved interface. The source told us that Amazon has “skipped three or four generations,” comparing the old Kindle to the 1st gen iPod and the new version to something like the sexy iPod Mini.

The second new model, which is shaped like an 8 1/2 x 11-inch piece of paper, is considerably bigger than the current model and should be available next year.

Both models should come in multiple colors and may be aimed at younger readers.

I’m particularly interested in the new model, rumored to be shaped like a standard piece of paper. That, coupled with color, make me believe that Amazon may be targeting textbooks.

As I’ve written previously, the textbook market is perfect for Kindle. The new size and color make it both easy to carry with traditional books and ‘cool’ to boot. (I frankly don’t get the color issue myself, but the demand for pink is tremendous.)

However, the release date of October is a huge miss for this textbook season, which starts just about … now, and gets really big in August until finally petering out in September. So the signals here are a bit mixed.

No doubt Amazon wants the updated first version to be available for the holiday shopping bonanza. That makes complete sense. But if the second model is essentially a Kindle textbook, I just can’t see it being a hot gift. I mean, it’s not socks but getting a digital eTextbook reader isn’t exactly ‘fun’ either.

The drum beat for digital textbooks is getting louder with the closure of Textbook Torrents and Amazon would be wise to aggressively jump into this market as quickly as possible.

This is one of the stranger PostSecret submissions I’ve come across. If you aren’t familiar with the site, I encourage you to check it out. It’s thought-provoking and often heart-breaking. The secrets are sort of like mini-character sketches or micro-stories. I have to imagine it’s a treasure trove of ideas for a novelist!

This particular secret is odd and generates a lot of questions. What does this person do when they finish a bad book? Is eating the last page of a good book a symbolic way to somehow gain knowledge or power? Why the last page? Couldn’t you pick out your favorite passage?

One thing is for sure, don’t lend this person any of your books.

Kindle sales have doubled, or so Amazon would like to have you believe. A recent Time story reported the following:

According to a source at Amazon, “on a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12% of sales for those titles.”

In late May at the D: All Things Digital Conference, Tim O’Reilly reported Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos saying that “kindle sales represent 6% of all Amazon sales for the 125,000 titles that are available on kindle.”

The problem is that these percentages are delivered in a vacuum. There is no indication as to true sales figures. Here’s the issue in a nutshell for those who are statistically challenged.

Let’s say the the 6% figure was based on 1,o00,000 unit sales. That means Kindle sales accounted for 60,000 units. The 12% figure could be based on another time period where unit sales were, say, 800,000. 12% of 800,000 is 96,000 unit sales. So while the percentage of sales rose 100% from 6% t0 12%, actual unit sales only rose 60% from 60,000 to 96,000.

For what time period is each percentage based? Is the 12% figure cumulative? (If so, the June percentage would have to be massive!) Are these based on revenue or unit sales? These are just the basic questions. Never mind the more detailed analysis of unit sales per Kindle, repeat Kindle sales and median channel sales percentage.

It’s hard to believe that investors are willing to take this type of sales obfuscation. We still don’t know how many Kindles were sold! Oh, they were sold out, but it’s a real easy marketing trick to create buzz by selling out a small line of inventory.

You have to ask yourself, why won’t Amazon actually divulge any of the sales data. If it were as great as they make it seem wouldn’t they be shouting it from the rooftops Tarzan style?

Credit Tim O’Reilly and Time’s Josh Quittner for not blindly reporting these ‘figures’ as a success. In particular, I enjoyed Quittner’s opening volley.

Is the Kindle starting to catch fire with consumers? From the Department of Inscrutable Data Points comes word that e-book sales for Amazon’s Kindle — its digital reading device-have doubled during the past two months. Kind of, sort of, maybe.

Others have been less rigorous in their analysis, seeming to trust Amazon on faith and hoping that another iPod like success story is in the making. Convince me Amazon! Just show us the numbers.

Borders Books is a company undergoing tremendous changes as it works to turn around its business in a flagging industry. Yet, based on some comments to a previous post, it seems like they’ve pissed off one of their most important assets - people. Here are a few excerpts:

From the front lines, those “strategic alternatives” included getting rid of managers and supervisors, eliminating the employee gift card of $25/mo. for full time employees, eliminating time and a half for all employees working holidays and the thing that is guaranteed to save their rosy butts — charging employees 35 cents for tea and coffee that had been previously free.

We have also been vigorously sending back music and book product to the vendors in order to get quick credit back at the expense of our empty bookshelves and music/DVD units …

… managers have been asked to cut back on supply ordering, and necessary repairs are not being completed.

My brother works for Borders and he said that they have just cut out the employee of the month program (probably because there was a $25 gift card given to the recipient).

Borders fires there dave Carpenter winner for 2005 because he cares about the customers. now they want to go to St Charles Ave. with no one that knows the city of New orleans. Is getting rid of your long standing employees a good idea?

I didn’t expect Borders employees to find my little corner of the Internet. I’m pleased though! They’ve found a place to vent and it’s extremely interesting to get their perspective on the changes taking place.

Some of the gripes above revolve around entitlements, perks that are now being taken away. I know some may say these folks are just whining but, if true, these moves are very short-sighted in my opinion. Books are not unique, they are essentially commodity products. Price is clearly a big part of the equation but the experience can also have a large impact on sales.

I doubt customers are getting the best service if these comments are a true indication of the current climate in Borders stores. And Borders needs every advantage they can get with Barnes and Noble, a host of online venues, and big box retailers like Target and Wal-Mart ratcheting up the competition.

So I again must ask whether Borders is really interested in turning around their business for the long haul or are they just looking to make the short-term financials look appealing enough to Barnes and Noble?

According to Inside Higher Ed, Princeton University Press will join other notable University Presses such as Yale University Press, Oxford University Press and The University of California Press in making portions of their catalogs available on Kindle.

University Presses, even the big ones, have often found it difficult to survive, much less flourish. The Kindle could help these struggling presses to find greener pastures. Details on the nature of these relationships is still unknown.

The university presses participating in Kindle were reluctant to describe the specific financial arrangements they have with Amazon (which also declined to discuss them), but said that they were revenue-sharing deals, and that preparing the books for release on Kindle was not particularly burdensome or expensive.

I’d be very interested to know exactly what the revenue sharing deal is at present. Kindle is certainly working hard to make more and more titles available for download. The question is whether this is a type of introductory offer type of deal, sweet at the beginning and then onerous as it moves forward when you’re essentially addicted to the platform. (I’m looking at you Comcast.)

Barbara Fister has a great comment to the Inside Higher Ed piece:

I don’t have any objection to UPs trying this revenue stream (even self-published authors are doing it), but I doubt the Kindle will revolutionize the textbook market.

First, if illustrations and color and permission-based images are problematic, that’s a hurdle. Second, the publisher sets the price, and they haven’t shown much inclination to price electronic versions at a steep enough discount to tempt students in huge numbers. Third — students object to paying a lot for a book that they can’t share or resell, and they won’t be all that thrilled that they can’t buy a used copy. (I’m skeptical that you can download a Kindle book to your computer — isn’t that a violation of their terms of service?)

Add to that students in Montana and Alaska are outta luck (the wireless network that Amazon uses doesn’t reach there) and students would be forced to spend a lot of money for the a gadget that limits their shopping to a single store.

The price is certainly an issue. The Kindle versions come at what seems like a 10% discount. It would take a substantial number of titles to offset the $300+ cost of the Kindle itself. In addition, you can’t resell these books.

In ‘analog’ form, you can sell a number of these titles back to a University Bookstore or independent bookseller for more than 10% of the purchase price. I recall with great glee the end of the semester when I’d sell back my textbooks to the University Bookstore. Not all were accepted and I probably only got 20% to 50% of the original purchase price but … it was enough for a weekend splurge at the local watering hole.

This one currently lands in the A for effort pile, but incomplete as the grade of record.

Last week (or so) I wrote about sites that had good bookstore maps. A kind reader noted that I’d missed LibraryThing Local. I use LibraryThing, fairly regularly, and missed this completely. So much for tab UI huh?

In general I find LibraryThing to be the best social reading website. Sure enough, they’ve implemented an extremely nice local section that lets users see bookstores, libraries and fairs/festivals in both text and map form based on an address or postal code radius search.

In addition, they provide event listings for these venues. These listings are dependent on users and/or venues uploading their events, so the information is less than comprehensive. It’s better than nothing and I’m hoping more and more bookstores and libraries will begin to use the service.

Features also include an individual listing for each venue where you can comment, edit or favorite the venue. I find it a bit humorous that in the edit area they ask whether it is a ‘Real place’ or ‘Online’.

As you might expect, LibraryThing Local has more libraries listed (>21,000) than bookstores (nearly 10,000). Also, there just isn’t a lot of user generated information here yet (event/venue ratio is below 5%), but it is ready and waiting … so stop by and help build what could be the best resource for finding used bookstores online.