Kindle Textbooks could be huge. That’s saying a lot for me since I’m not a big fan of the Kindle. It’s not that the device doesn’t look interesting or perform half-way well. I simply believe reading is active rather than passive and there is no motivating agent of change to adopt a new reading platform. So, I’m not nearly as bullish on future Kindle sales, despite the ‘sold out’ buzz and fawning praise from gadgeteers.
Yet, the textbook niche seems ripe for the Kindle. Textbooks are expensive, heavy, frequently updated, largely disposable and reach a demographic eager to adopt new technology.
The US Department of Education (DOE) and Government Accountability Office (GAO) have researched the rising cost of textbooks in the last ten years. Following are a few excerpts from the DOE Koch Report:
Between 1986 and 2004, textbook prices rose 186 percent in the United States, or slightly more than six percent per year (GAO, 2005). Meanwhile, other prices rose only about three percent per year (GAO, 2005).
CALPIRG (2005) found that students at California public universities spent an average of $898 on textbooks in the 2004-2005 academic year. If textbook prices have continued to rise at six percent per year, then this expenditure will rise to $1,009 in the 2006-2007 academic year and constitute 6.1 percent of the estimated annual cost of education for a resident student at a four-year public university (College Board, 2005).
There is a lot of money to be made in textbooks – publishers, college bookstores, used booksellers. In fact, the secondary market in textbooks is perhaps as important to the book vertical as the holiday season. Textbooks provide an ever renewing source of customers who are essentially forced to buy textbooks at high price points.
The Kindle would disrupt this ecosystem which may be why Amazon hasn’t (yet) tapped the textbook potential.
Who would win? Publishers could be persuaded to lower prices for digital distribution based on lower production costs. In addition, if DRM can be attached, the resale capability of textbooks is severely reduced. They likely lock in higher margins, even while reducing the cost of textbooks. The latter means students win and, of course, Amazon wins.
Who loses? Certainly the secondary market for used textbooks. The college bookstores also lose since they’re no longer in the distribution chain, ceding this to Amazon. Folks like Barnes & Noble (who run many college bookstores) and Follett would not be pleased.
Aside from the economic issues, the weight of textbooks has been a growing concern for both parents and educators. Kindle textbooks would solve the weight issue and would certainly appeal to those concerned with the environment.
However, it could potentially expand the disparity in education via the digital divide. Here’s where Kindle contracts with school systems or grants from non-profits could help distribute the Kindle to all economic classes.
Finally, the market is perfect. They’re young, not reading for pleasure and have no real necessity to hang onto a particular textbook. It’s practical and functional. Yet, a certain percentage will begin to view the Kindle as the preferred reading platform and likely use it for more than textbooks. Amazon could actually create the market I currently don’t see through wide adoption of Kindle textbooks.
The Kindle already provides some features that would benefit students:
… you can add annotations to text, just like you might write in the margins of a book. And because it is digital, you can edit, delete, and export your notes, highlight and clip key passages, and bookmark pages for future use.
There’s already a drum beat of folks advocating for Kindle textbooks, including here, here and even on Amazon. Me? I still don’t have one and don’t really want one either.
I still think wide Kindle adoption is a long-shot but the odds would get better if Amazon launched a highly focused Kindle textbook initiative.
After The Beep by Kathleen Heck is an amusing look at corporate communications run amok and delivers bite-size stories using modern technology as the framework. No, it’s not Hemingway’s “For sale: baby shoes, never used” but the vignettes poke fun at many of the stereotypes that nearly all of us have encountered at some point in our life.
In a first quarter earnings call, Barnes & Noble indicated that it was contemplating the purchase of Borders Books. They didn’t just come out and say this but it’s pretty easy to decipher the doublespeak and read between the lines.
The Long Rain by Peter Gadol is a great suspense novel that explores relationships, morals and guilt. Jason Dark is putting the pieces of his life back together. He’s moved to a family vineyard, opened up a small law practice in the rural town and is renewing relationships with his estranged wife and troubled son. But then things go awry. On a rainy night on a country road he accidentally runs over and kills a teenager. No one is around for miles and miles.
Citigroup Analyst Mark Mahaney predicts that 
When do you read? Seriously, with all the things competing for my time I often find it difficult to sit down and read, hence the recent brownout in this blog. Sure, I could have posted some other small bits of news or observation but I still feel that the main reason why you’d read the Used Books Blog is for the book reviews. And I’m a big proponent of quality over quantity, so I’m not going to just go back in time and write paragraph reviews of the hundreds (thousands?) of books I’ve read in the course of my life.
Foop! by Chris Genoa is an appealing science-fiction farce with healthy doses of amusing social commentary. I liked Foop! but wanted to like it more. All the ingredients were there, and it did taste good, but I couldn’t help but think that a dash more of this and a little less of that would have really made it a great read.