Aug

4

Kindle Sales Boost eBook Market

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The current generation of the Amazon Kindle is not without flaws, says Ars Technica, but “Kindle’s strong sales have galvanized the eBook market, and Amazon itself is developing a new series of Kindle products.”

The details of the update, however, have yet to be announced, which means we don’t know yet if we’ll see a hardware/software refresh of the existing Kindle, a new “Kindle 2.0″ hardware design, or a new, student-oriented Kindle aimed directly at the textbook market.

Priced properly, Kindle could become an overnight sensation in the education market, even at the current initial price of $359. College textbook prices can easily hit $500 or more in a single semester; a one-time fee for Kindle that lowered total book bills would be the ultimate no-brainer for a gadget-loving college freshman.

Aug

4

Amazon Kindle and the Textbook Market

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A recent Crunchgear article noted the unit sales and revenue success for the Amazon Kindle (240,000 Kindle units have been sold, says TechCrunch), and suggested that the impact may be end up being particularly strong in the college textbook market.

Students are used to paying outrageous prices for textbooks. Even though the excuse “it’s the high cost of paper” wears thin rather quickly, students will always need texts. I’m sure future generations will hear “it’s the high cost of production” as the excuse for overpriced e-texts, but the fact remains students and texts go hand in hand. Just the simple luxury of not lugging around a heavy library should spark the market.

Jul

28

Textbooks, e-Books, and Digital Devices

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Connecting the Dots takes a close look at issues of textbook affordability, textbook sales, and tools and devices such as the Amazon Kindle and the rumored-to-be-in-the-works Apple Tablet.

It’s not just about the tools and technologies to build and deliver a replacement for highly expensive paper books. It’s all about aligning incentives, but here’s the kicker: I don’t think the solution is going to come from government, advocacy groups, those buying the books, open source/open content initiatives like Wikibooks, or even the backpack police concerned about kids and college students schlepping huge and heavy materials around, but rather from a vendor or vendors who deliver a platform, provide tools, and a device that will capture the imagination of everyone concerned.

The article continues:

Think for a moment about the opportunity represented by a combination of a development platform with tools, a way to combine content that delivers most of it on a device but has connection to the internet and application functionality in “the cloud”. There could be tremendous upside potential in an ongoing stream of content updates, connections with other students . . . and the textbook would become a living, breathing and dynamic offering vs. something the college publishing industry manipulates in order to maintain revenues and gross margin.