ResourceShelf » Blog Archive » E-Book Prices (For Popular Titles) Dropping

ResourceShelf » Blog Archive » E-Book Prices (For Popular Titles) Dropping: "In July 2008, the top 25 titles on Amazon’s bestseller list for the four weeks averaged $9.25 and the top 25 in June 2009 averaged $8.04 after decreasing fairly steadily during the interim. For Sony, after starting at $10.13 in July 2008 then increasing to $11.68 in November thanks to a few well selling bundles, the average price of the top 25 fell to $9.97 in June."

The American Textbook Accessibility Act | Education IT | ZDNet.com

The American Textbook Accessibility Act | Education IT | ZDNet.com: "Frankly, there is only one that I see that makes a lot of sense right now. EPUB, developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum, is open, XML-based, and can grow as our needs increase. Even this format, though, needs traction with major publishers.
Alternatively, it needs the sort of federal backing that got us on the moon. Well, ok, maybe not that much backing, but we need a standard and we need content. We need it sooner than later and it needs to be accessible to students worldwide, with and without disabilities. It’s time that the government stepped into this and mandated creation of an open, extensible standard. I even have a name for the legislation: “The American Textbook Accessibility Act.” Catchy, isn’t it?"

Kindle coming to students | U Tech Tips

Kindle coming to students | U Tech Tips: "I agree that if anyone should be able to break this textbook bond that has been formed it should be international schools. We don’t have NCLB we don’t have to prepare reports for a state or local government. If anyone in the world should be able to move ahead in this new information rich world it should be private schools, and especially those in the international world.
I still think what Shaun writes about the Kindle holds true….think of the connections teachers could give kids? The content they could push that would be more relevant, more up to date then today’s text book. Now…..how do we convince the boards that this is the future….that I don’t have the answer to……yet."

The end of textbooks: with so many vital sources of information available to students, why are schools slavishly holding onto textbooks? (Speaking Out). - Free Online Library

The end of textbooks: with so many vital sources of information available to students, why are schools slavishly holding onto textbooks? (Speaking Out). - Free Online Library: "... As they advance in school, children
recognize that what they see on television is
far more realistic and thought-provoking
than the sanitized world of their textbooks."

A Great Day in St. Louis | The Thinking Stick

A Great Day in St. Louis | The Thinking Stick: "From there we talked about WikiBooks.org and how teachers could use this site to not only study, but create the textbook of the future with students. I’ve yet to hear of a teacher actually doing this…but still feel it has some potential in the classroom."

Students Give E-Book Readers Mixed Reviews - WSJ.com

Students Give E-Book Readers Mixed Reviews - WSJ.com: "Still, the state is moving ahead with its digital-books plan. California is reviewing 20 free math and science e-books that will be made available to teachers this fall. The state will leave it up to schools to figure out how to get the content to students, with solutions ranging from printing them out to handing them to students on CDs. This method, known as open source, could save the state millions."

Students Give E-Book Readers Mixed Reviews - WSJ.com

Students Give E-Book Readers Mixed Reviews - WSJ.com: "Many e-textbooks are also locked up technologically so they can’t be shared, printed or resold. In a recent study of 504 college students by the Student Public Interest Research Group, a consortium of student activists based in Chicago, the organization slammed existing e-textbook efforts such as CourseSmart for “being on the wrong track.”"

Students Give E-Book Readers Mixed Reviews - WSJ.com

Students Give E-Book Readers Mixed Reviews - WSJ.com: "Pearson PLC’s education unit, one of America’s largest textbook publishers, will be unveiling a selection of Kindle DX-compatible textbooks in a few weeks, and wouldn’t comment further on pricing."

PersonaNonData: Media Week 29: Education, DVDs, Ebook Sales, OCLC, CourseSmart, Target.: Publishing Strategy

PersonaNonData: Media Week 29: Education, DVDs, Ebook Sales, OCLC, CourseSmart, Target.: Publishing Strategy: "CourseSmart has added a bunch of new publishers to its content base (PR):

Each of CourseSmart's new publishers will supplement its digital library of eTextbooks in the following specialty areas:
Elsevier Science and Technology: Life and Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, Engineering, Computer Science, Media Technology, Finance, Business and Hospitality
F.A. Davis: Nursing and Health Professions
Jones & Bartlett: Biology; Health, Fitness and Wellness; Criminology, Nursing and Computer Science
SAGE: Education, Psychology, Statistics, Sociology and Criminology
Sinauer Associates: Biology, Psychology and Neuroscience
Taylor & Francis: Humanities & Social Sciences, Life Science, Business, Psychology, Mental Health and Computer Science
Wolters Kluwer Health (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins): Medicine, Nursing and Health Professions"

PersonaNonData: Media Week 29: Education, DVDs, Ebook Sales, OCLC, CourseSmart, Target.: Publishing Strategy

PersonaNonData: Media Week 29: Education, DVDs, Ebook Sales, OCLC, CourseSmart, Target.: Publishing Strategy: "In the UK The Bookseller reports on differing approaches to revenue splits on eBook sales:

Industry sources said that a figure of 25% was becoming standard, though some admitted that it could be 'variable'. One agent said: 'Random House is the only publisher not offering 25% as its best standard rate but not all agents are getting 25% from all publishers.' Penguin m.d. Helen Fraser said: 'Our standard e-book royalty is 25% of net receipts. My sense is that the industry is probably settling between 20% and 25%. Some publishers are offering the same to everybody and some are having a gradated scale.'"

Spain’s Big Three to Form New Digital Distributor | Publishing Perspectives

Spain’s Big Three to Form New Digital Distributor | Publishing Perspectives: "MADRID & BARCELONA: Spain has not been on the leading edge of the digital revolution up to this point. Now, after years of observing how the market has developed in other countries, the biggest publishing groups in Spain have decided the moment has come to take a big step forward - and they will do it together. Planeta, Random House Mondadori, and Santillana, which together make up some 70% of the market, are joining forces to set up a digital distribution company for ebooks. This initiative will go hand in hand with a major marketing effort starting with a splashy launch of e-books and e-readers this holiday season through at least one major retailer. They have set a goal of having every frontlist title able to be published simultaneously in both print and ebook form by mid 2011.
In addition, given the strength of cell-phone penetration in Spain, the plan calls for making ebooks available through smartphone apps, starting with the most popular devices from Apple and Nokia.
In negotiations with the Association of Spanish Literary Agencies (ADAL), the publishers have agreed to price ebooks at 80% of a printed books cover price, with a standard 25% royalty rate. Booksellers will be offered a maximum discount of 50%. The two groups hope to sign an agreement soon."

A plan to put an Amazon Kindle in every backpack | csmonitor.com

A plan to put an Amazon Kindle in every backpack | csmonitor.com: "Why limit this to the K-12? I would suggest that this program be extended to the community college that President Obama sees as a key in training a modern workforce,"

From 30 Pounds to 10.3 Ounces: Tomorrow's Textbooks - ABC News

From 30 Pounds to 10.3 Ounces: Tomorrow's Textbooks - ABC News: "The average publication date of a public school textbook in New York is 1986, according to the New York Library Association."

From 30 Pounds to 10.3 Ounces: Tomorrow's Textbooks - ABC News

From 30 Pounds to 10.3 Ounces: Tomorrow's Textbooks - ABC News: "Sparangis supports the introduction of an eBook reader, granted the apropriate research is done to select the best unit. 'Some people might look at it like it's just a high-cost book,' he said. 'But sustainability over time could cut costs.'"

From 30 Pounds to 10.3 Ounces: Tomorrow's Textbooks - ABC News

From 30 Pounds to 10.3 Ounces: Tomorrow's Textbooks - ABC News: "The sentiment is shared by some school administrators. 'Discussion like this opens up the door for online media in the classroom,' said Themy Sparangis, the chief technology director for the Los Angeles Unified School District. 'We've been talking about it for years, but now it's more than just talk.'"

Amazon's '1984' Deletion From Kindle Examined : NPR

Amazon's '1984' Deletion From Kindle Examined : NPR: "Jonathan Zittrain, professor of law at Harvard Law School and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, says devices such as the Kindle check in frequently with the mother ship.
'To be really useful you'd want to leave that wireless connection on,' Zittrain, the author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, tells Robert Siegel. 'An unanticipated feature of that though is that you can have Amazon or the vendor that runs the device be able to reach into the device and make changes to the way it works.'"

Top News - Experts split on 'Kindle in Every Backpack'

Top News - Experts split on 'Kindle in Every Backpack': "But that control by publishers could cause problems down the line, said E. William Horne, who manages the security solutions group of William Warren Consulting, a company that specializes in providing secure, cost-effective solutions to businesses and professionals who want more effective and flexible solutions to data-processing challenges. He argues that censorship could become routine.
'Even if the Kindle device is 'owned' by the government, the problem remains [that] publishers will be able...to censor controversial works to make sales. With paper books, it's not economically viable to print separate version[s]. With eBooks, it's easy,' he said. 'This means that any book a local school department--any local school department--doesn't like will be offered in several version[s], each tailored to the tastes of the local bureaucrats in question.'"

Top News - Experts split on 'Kindle in Every Backpack'

Top News - Experts split on 'Kindle in Every Backpack': "Has anyone tried to get e-texts? The companies we have looked at give one of a few answers: 1) What? No, we don't do that! 2) Sure, you may purchase e-text, at the same cost per copy as the hardback edition. 3) Sure, but it will cost 50% of the hardback and only if you buy the hardback edition as well. Are textbook companies really going to accept a change that would potentially cut into profits (at least initially)?"

Top News - Experts split on 'Kindle in Every Backpack'

Top News - Experts split on 'Kindle in Every Backpack': "First of all, which eReader would you choose? They do not all use the same file format. Next, why not a netbook? Then the student can word process as well! And, currently, a netbook is less expensive than any eReader. Then, who will pay for all the schools to have digital libraries?"

Top News - Experts split on 'Kindle in Every Backpack'

Top News - Experts split on 'Kindle in Every Backpack': "I think that we must be somewhat wary about anyone coming in and saying lets give everyone some new flashy piece of technology as if to say that this is going to solve all the problems in education."

The Huntsville Item, Huntsville, TX - Library science receives second Laura Bush grant

The Huntsville Item, Huntsville, TX - Library science receives second Laura Bush grant: "Forty school libraries in the Rio Grande Valley will benefit from an almost $900,000 grant Sam Houston State University’s library science department recently received as part of the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program."

Bobbie Johnson reports on Amazon's deletion of paid-for Kindle content | Technology | The Guardian

Bobbie Johnson reports on Amazon's deletion of paid-for Kindle content | Technology | The Guardian: "Whatever the case, it is clear our relationship with digital information is changing and – with or without our knowledge – we are rapidly moving from a world of consumers and owners to one of subscribers and renters. Whether we are ready for that transition remains to be seen.
'I think it's a fundamental question, and it shows a big disconnect between what the lawyers inside some of these companies think they're doing and what the purchasers of these products think they're buying,' says the EFF's Cindy Cohn. 'Our view is that, to the extent that we're going to harmonise it, we need to harmonise it in favour of people's expectations – and not of a lawyer's tricky legal drafting game.'"

Harvard University Press to go online with Scribd | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Harvard University Press to go online with Scribd | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home: "“I’d be surprised if, with the same pricing model, people will be willing to pay for content that can only be viewed online,” Mr. Lee said. He said interest might increase in publishing the material online if Scribd were to develop a way for the books to become portable. Materials downloaded through Scribd can only be viewed through the site’s software, and cannot be printed or replicated. “If we allow the content to be downloaded with no restrictions, it could eat into our print sales.”"

Amazon Kindle DX Review: A Student Perspective « Sri Lankan at (or to be at) the Stanford GSB

Amazon Kindle DX Review: A Student Perspective « Sri Lankan at (or to be at) the Stanford GSB: "One of the main features that I wanted to try out on the DX was the ability to view business school cases in PDF form. I connected to Stanford’s webapps and downloaded a few cases. Amazon gives two ways of transferring personal documents to the Kindle."

Amazon Kindle DX Review: A Student Perspective « Sri Lankan at (or to be at) the Stanford GSB

Amazon Kindle DX Review: A Student Perspective « Sri Lankan at (or to be at) the Stanford GSB: "The keyboard at the bottom of the DX that Amazon hopes students will use to make notes, is probably the worst part of the Kindle design. The keys are tiny and not very easy to press. It feels like a blackberry keyboard but with awkward spaces inserted in the middle.
Hopefully Amazon will come out with some sort of keyboard accessory support for this that will allow a better portable keyboard to be fixed to the USB port (might be wishful thinking)."

E-readers face tough competition from other devices

E-readers face tough competition from other devices: "But some think the price tag that comes with e-readers will prevent it from becoming mainstream, especially in the current economic climate.
'The financial crisis is going to slow down the purchase of e-readers,' said Francoise Dubruille, director of the European Booksellers' Federation.
Some, however, believe mobile phones could prove more popular as a display for reading digital content than e-readers as most people already have one, and they provide opportunities for readers to interact.
'South African publishers ... told me they expect the mobile to be the next big thing to read. Everybody has a mobile in South Africa, so they are preparing content for these mobiles,' said Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair."

Making sense of the '1984' Kindle kerfuffle | Speeds and feeds - CNET News

Making sense of the '1984' Kindle kerfuffle | Speeds and feeds - CNET News: "Amazon was stupid not to explain the situation. It should have explained long ago its ability to remotely delete inappropriately distributed books, and it should have explained what and why it was doing that in the present case.
But this isn't an argument against e-book readers in general or the Kindle or DRM technology in particular. (This case had nothing to do with DRM).
In truth, this case shows another benefit of digital distribution and remote management: they make it more difficult for greedy pirates to make money at the expense of others."

Reinventing the Book in the Age of the Web - O'Reilly Radar

Reinventing the Book in the Age of the Web - O'Reilly Radar: "We keep asking variations on 'how will ebooks change books?' But asking the question the way I've usually seen it asked seems to presuppose that there's such a thing as a 'book'. I don't think there ever was. Maybe it was merely an umbrella concept over a variety of different content forms grouped together only because they were once convenient to deliver in similar-looking physical artifacts."

Instapundit » Blog Archive » SO I LIKE MY AMAZON KINDLE, but this business of remotely deleting books you’ve already “bought” is …

Instapundit » Blog Archive » SO I LIKE MY AMAZON KINDLE, but this business of remotely deleting books you’ve already “bought” is …: "In upending our assumptions about our freedoms to read books in private and use them as we see fit, Amazon threatens many of the basic freedoms to read we have come to expect in a physical world. If we want to preserve these freedoms, we will have to reform copyright law and privacy law to control the new intermediaries who can control us at a distance."

Piracy May Be the Kindle DX's Savior -- Seeking Alpha

Piracy May Be the Kindle DX's Savior -- Seeking Alpha: "But the Kindle’s real weakness is its highlighting and annotation functionality. In a real book, you can mark up your textbook and make notes to yourself in the margins. The Kindle lets you highlight and take notes, but the interface is painful to use with any kind of frequency - E-ink doesn’t lend itself well to quick navigation, nor does the Kindle’s joystick/button interface. From a student’s perspective, the Kindle is badly in need of a touchscreen."

Piracy May Be the Kindle DX's Savior -- Seeking Alpha

Piracy May Be the Kindle DX's Savior -- Seeking Alpha: "Sifting through an E-book looking for a certain passage or image when you don’t know its exact page number (some call it ‘random access’) is a strange and unnatural experience. The Kindle sort of makes up for this by offering text search, but this is only helpful if there’s a proper name or unusual vocab term that you can remember in the passage."

Kindle DX | mymediamusings

Kindle DX | mymediamusings: "If you want to replace hardcopy textbooks with digital versions, that’s a great idea but locking those digital copies into a closed system like the Kindle defeats the entire purpose. Not only is the Kindle stuck in greyscale – a factor that would seriously effect the value of many textbooks – but it is impossible to easily integrate the textbook into a student’s workflow when the data is stuck on another device. For instance, a digital version of a textbook that a student can read on his computer is great. He can quickly highlight and search sections online, cut and copy bits for notes or ideas or questions, etc. and have all that stuff in one place when it comes time for test prep and paper writing. No way the student can do that with a Kindle."

Kindle DX | mymediamusings

Kindle DX | mymediamusings: "The issue is that neither the format nor interface of the Kindle DX makes the process of skimming feasible. With a dead-tree newspaper, it is a quick process to flip through all the content and dig deeper when you catch an article that interests you. The way the Kindle DX handles the content forces a constant “flipping” from screen to screen at a rate that is slower than physically turning a page. On top of that, each “page” only holds a fraction of the content one can capture on a page of the newspaper."

Kindle DX | mymediamusings

Kindle DX | mymediamusings: "If you are anything like me, you read a fair number of blogs. In fact, I would say that I currently have over 50 blogs subscribed to in my GoogleReader. If I wanted to even come close to replicating that experience on the Kindle it would cost me around $100/month or $1200/year just to read blogs that completely free online or via my iPhone. On top of that, the Kindle is a completely inferior blog reader due to the aforementioned lack of rich media capabilities (or color, for that matter!)."

Security and the e-textbooks proposal | Security News - Betanews

Security and the e-textbooks proposal | Security News - Betanews: "Students of copyright history will recall Basic Books Incorporated v. Kinko's, in which the publisher sued the copy shop for photocopying materials for educational purposes -- a practice Kinko's argued constituted fair use for non-profit educational purposes. (No, Kinko's was not an educational facility; that was part of the problem with the case.) In the aftermath, most schools got very, very nervous about photocopying 'packet' materials for students, often requiring them to buy an entire textbook in order just to acquire one or two pages of relevant content. The Kinko's case took years and many lawyers to get the publisher's desired result -- that is, shutting down the practice. With an electronic book, the process could be as simple as flipping the proverbial switch. Amazon has already run into controversy for locking Kindle users out of their accounts (and thus their purchased texts). What happens when a school can't pay for 'updates' and the publisher decides to pull access entirely? For that matter, what happens when some kid messes with the settings on her e-book reader and the device decides it hasn't got any of the textbooks it's supposed to have?"

Interesting take on the security issues with the DLC proposal.

Classrooms go high-tech to engage students :: WRAL.com

Classrooms go high-tech to engage students :: WRAL.com: "Students are also getting textbooks for free thanks to companies like Flat World Knowledge in Nyack, N.Y. Professors can customize the expert-authored, online books to fit their lectures, deleting chapters or sections, for example. Students can read them for free or choose to buy from a range of alternatives that include a soft-cover black-and-white version for $29."

The Kindle and the iPhone with Farhad Manjoo

How the Kindle will change the world. - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine

How the Kindle will change the world. - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine: "I remember Bill Gates, in Slate's Microsoft years, mentioning in an interview that he read our webzine printed out—a tribute that underscored an inherent flaw. For all their advantages in creating and distributing texts, screens have compromised, rather than enhanced, the feeling of being transported into a writer's imaginative universe. You can't curl up with a laptop."

A librarian speaks - The Failure of Ebook Devices | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

A librarian speaks - The Failure of Ebook Devices | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home: "The current Amazon stance is the equivalent of a wink and a nod that you could lend one, but it’s against the terms of service. While my first reaction was admiration of shrewdness, it has since evolved into insult. Did Amazon really think that a libraries would not be interested in offering this device to their patrons? Either they are terribly short sighted as to their market or just plain inconsiderate"

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices - NYTimes.com

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices - NYTimes.com: "On the Internet, of course, there is no such thing as a memory hole. While the copyright on “1984” will not expire until 2044 in the United States, it has already expired in other countries, including Canada, Australia and Russia. Web sites in those countries offer digital copies of the book free to all comers."

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices - NYTimes.com

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices - NYTimes.com: "Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said."

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices - NYTimes.com

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices - NYTimes.com: "People who bought the rescinded editions of the books reacted with indignation, while acknowledging the literary ironies involved. “Of all the books to recall,” said Charles Slater, an executive with a sheet-music retailer in Philadelphia, who bought the digital edition of “1984” for 99 cents last month. “I never imagined that Amazon actually had the right, the authority or even the ability to delete something that I had already purchased.”"

Popularity of online note-sharing websites grows, concerns professors | The Michigan Daily

Popularity of online note-sharing websites grows, concerns professors | The Michigan Daily: "Websites like StudyBlue.com offer University students free access to notes and a chance to make extra cash for uploading their own course materials. Some University professors say the sites pose the potential for copyright infringements and declining academic performances as fewer students attend lecture."

Pearson seeks pot of gold in China - Telegraph

Pearson seeks pot of gold in China - Telegraph: "Pearson has been reducing its reliance on US education by investing in its international education business, buying publishers and assessment businesses worldwide and taking the unusual step of opening English language schools in China."

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com#comments#comments

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com#comments#comments: "I echo what everyone who thought the reference to the Kindle device, with its proprietary software says. No, no, no. Let’s go open source. Open source encourages innovation and provides cheap or free and ubiquitous solutions, as well as costly ones."

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com#comments#comments

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com#comments#comments: "In all, we need more innovations in textbook content construction and delivery - along with other innovations in platforms like *better* eBooks and NetBooks. What about content delivery on mobile phones (that’s already here, and soon we’ll have small, portable foldout screens that we can hook up to our phones when we want to read something at length. So, who needs Amazon’s eBook? or for that matter, *anyone’s* eBook? Let consumers choose the delivery platform they want. Require platform vendors to agree on a national standard for accepting digital content (textbook) files, and voila!, we get competition on the technology platform, driving prices down - and innovation on the content creation side, further driving prices down."

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: "I couldn’t even get some of my college professors to let classmates use books that are fully uploaded to Google, like Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, and we want second-graders to have a Kindle?"

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: "I LOVE my Kindle…think it’s the coolest thing ever. I LOVE Amazon for developing it. But let’s wait and see what technologies lie just over the horizon before we commit to putting one in every backpack. Wouldn’t it be better, for example, to give every kid a cheap netbook?"

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: "I am about to print out the article and let my sixth graders next year write persuasive essays about the positives and negitives of using a kindle. Personally, I think the concept is great- You would not beleive the amount of books the sixth graders have to carry around. There are some advantages but a lot of negitives that have to be worked out to make it work."

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: "There may be merit to this idea but it makes no sense to pursue it until there is real competition in the market. Otherwise it’s just a massive transfer of funds from taxpayers to Amazon."

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Each Student a Kindle - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: "E-books will allow for much more distribution of material - not less. Jane Eyre needs to seels tens of thousands of copies to be printed, where an e-book can be profitable at a couple of dozen. Just like independent music is much more widely available becasue of itunes, so will the the written word. Now go buy an I-Pod and get with it- the times have changed."